©DIE
As every year on 1 September, the Postgraduate Course started again. 18 people participate in the training programme by the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). We would like to take this opportunity to thank the institute and course directors as well as the staff for their warm welcome. By now tried and tested, we are the second cohort that has to deal with the challenges of the ongoing pandemic and its restrictions throughout the course. However, we are very happy that we were able to start in presence and get to know people and house first-hand in the plenary phase and gain exciting insights into various areas of global cooperation during our lectures and seminars.
Particularly, we would like to thank all those who have made this special course possible, especially the lecturers who accompany us in the plenary phase – whether on site or online – as well as the leaders of the research teams. Each and every one of them is already trying to master the upcoming challenges of the upcoming research phase with a lot of creativity and openness together with us. We are curious to see what else awaits us in the upcoming months!
Educational and interesting activities
Our first three weeks were marked by many exciting activities, both outside and inside the rooms of the DIE – starting with a city tour that introduced us to Bonn from the perspective of the city’s most important women. Another highlight besides our daily lectures and seminars was the Critical Whiteness Workshop. Its contents have kept us busy for a long time and will accompany us throughout our professional life in development cooperation. The one-day event allowed us to reflect on our own behaviour and develop methods to become more sensitive to racist behaviour in the future. We can warmly recommend this kind of workshop to everyone, especially those working in the professional field of international cooperation.
Strengthening the alumni network
We would also like to thank the 56th Postgraduate Course for the great support and advice around the programme and the institute. We are especially looking forward to the further development of the mentoring programme they initiated. It aims at bringing alumni and the institute’s staff into a personal exchange with us, the current participants of the postgraduate course.
We are very excited about the next few months. In order to be able to further educate ourselves and discuss with each other outside of the course, we have already founded various working groups, in which we dedicate ourselves, for example, to questions of decolonisation. Furthermore, we also hope for a lively exchange with the staff of the DIE. We are looking forward to spending our time and meeting people outside and inside the institute!
