The DIWAN project is part of the innovation focus B "Social innovation as a prerequisite for quality of life and health" in the project "RIGL-Fulda - Regional Innovation Centre Health and Quality of Life Fulda".

In the DIWAN project, participatory methods are used to create social places where dialogues about living together in rural and small-town society can emerge. Municipalities in rural areas are challenged by the Immigration Act to organise and shape the coexistence between long-established residents and immigrants in such a way that it can be perceived as successful for all. Instead of the term "immigration society", which refers to the political dimension, we use the term "migration society" in the DIWAN project, which emphasises the changes in society.

This involves questions about the extent to which shared values but also different ideas of the "good life" and quality of life can be recognised and dealt with in dialogue. It should be worked out where and how it is possible to compromise. Corresponding misinterpretations should become recognisable as such and resolvable in order to enable a mutual understanding of the other and initially the stranger.

In the three districts of Fulda, Hersfeld-Rotenburg and Vogelsbergkreis, the DIWAN project organised a series of future workshops with different groups of people who have arrived in the region fleeing war and poverty, as well as with 'native' small-town residents with and without experience of involvement in local refugee assistance. A mobile exhibition on the topic of "living together" is currently being developed from these dialogue processes, which are moderated by the staff of the university's Department of Social Work, in a participatory form with interested participants of the future workshops. It will become a crystallisation point for social publics in the region to negotiate and shape a successful coexistence for all in the migration society. Whether and to what extent the exhibition leads to reflection and change in dealing with the foreigner and the foreigner will be examined in a further project phase.

Goals

• To sustainably support and shape processes of living together in the migration society;
• Identify goals and ideas of living together in a participatory way;
• Enable mutual understanding of social practices of different social groups;
• Reconstruct different interests and needs in dialogue and relate them to each other;
• Initiate, accompany and analyse community-based learning and participation processes.

Methodologically, the project follows the principles of action research. In the sense of transdisciplinarity, findings from experience and research processes are gained together with practice partners and fed back into social practice. More