What is the The Children of Abraham/lbrahim?

The Children of Abraham/Ibrahim is a non-political and non-religious educational programme working with conflict solving and empathy training.

What is the goal of The Children of Abraham/lbrahim?

The various branches aim ultimately at maintaining and strengthening society’s democratic values.

What do we do?

The Children of Abraham works primarily with teacher training, using the IE-method (Identification creates Empathy). Identification exercises in speech and in writing – using sto­ries as a starting point – help young people to identify with human beings from different traditions.

What is the IE-Method? (Identification creates Empathy)

The IE-Method helps the students to understand themselves and “the other”. The starting point for the writing process is always a story. The students take roles entering the stories of Jewish, Christian and Islamic legends as well as from fiction of different genres, thereby using their own expe­riences without losing their integrity. The IE-method opens up the com­mon cultural heritage to students from different backgrounds.

• They get a chance to meet and identify with literary characters.
• They acquire knowledge about themselves and about “the other”.
• They improve their linguistic skills and their ability to find words for subtle feelings.
• Their vocabulary gets enriched and more diversified.

Common Roots (Comparative Religion)

Judaism, Christianity and Islam have more points in common than most people realize. The same characters are found in the Bible, the Koran and in the legends. Abraham/Ibrahim is the figurehead. He lived “before” Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His and his family’s adventures convey in­tense narrative zest to students on all levels. They listen to the stories about him and his descendants and work with the stories in various ways.

From Alfie Atkins to Fiodor Dostojevskij – The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child through literature

This reading programme focusing on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child aims at developing emphat­ic thinking in today’s young people. The starting point is a selection of fiction, one way or the other related to the most important articles of the UN Convention. Texts reflecting existential questions and democratic values offer interesting cases. Using the IE-Method, the students “step into the shoes” of the literary charac­ters and continue their stories.

Friends
Empathy Programme for the early school years and for children with special needs

A Family of Friends consists of a number of toy animals, and a few dolls of different ethnic origins. The aim of the programme is to make even very young children aware of their own identity and give them self-confidence.

The Abraham Collection of Artefacts

The Abraham Collection of Artefacts contains religious artefacts from six world religions. Boxes with these items and their field of application can be borrowed by teachers who want to make their education more concrete.