Certification of the Friedrich von Bodelschwingh Schools

Certification of the Friedrich von Bodelschwingh Schools

School without Racism – School with Courage

The Friedrich von Bodelschwingh-Schools (FvB-Schools) now belong to the German-wide school “Courage-Network”. The common concern is: school without racism – school with courage.

On May 28, 2019, Nilgün Isfendiyar, head of the municipal integration centre of the city of Bielefeld, awarded the certificate to the FvB schools. The FvB schools are thus in good company with 19 participating schools in Bielefeld and more than 2,800 schools throughout Germany.

Actually, it is a matter of self-evidence: It is about the protection of human dignity, about the acceptance of human diversity and its equivalence and about courageous commitment if one of them is violated. And the main actors are students. The aim is, of course, to measure and improve the internal climate of the FvB schools against these values. The students learn thereby to engage themselves courageously, to oppose the beginnings of racism and exclusion and to resolve conflicts peacefully. The justified hope is that the sensitisation of the students and their school field of action will help them to take their new awareness and their acquired ability to deal with conflicts into their future lives. It is like a stone’s throw into the water, whose rings are getting bigger and bigger.

In this sense, the certificate is not an award, but a self-commitment to actively oppose any form of discrimination at school and to organize projects and activities on the subject. 70% of teachers and students have signed up to this commitment.

The school patron for this certainly never-ending long-term project of a Courage school is the green local politician Hannelore Pfaff.


Report to the certification of the FvB Schools to the school without racism of Hannelore Pfaff.