Dalai Lama Fellows
Jakob Filzen
Leadership Vision
The human world is a beautifully complex place to navigate, where powerful positions always hold the danger of a single and excluding story. Here, I believe in leadership that creates equitable, compassionate, and energizing harmony in collective action by actively acknowledging, celebrating, and promoting diverse approaches and perspectives. And thereby, always remains the humble awareness of one’s own limits of perspective.
Project Description
Within the realm of immigration, we at 'Start with a Friend' envision a society in Germany that acknowledges and genuinely celebrates its own developing cultural and societal diversity. Everyone may feel at home and equally participate. Working towards this future, we initiate friendship-based encounters between immigrated newcomers and locals in 1:1 tandem partnerships and open local communities. We strengthen civic engagement in diverse teams as levers of participation in society. In regular workshops (and explicit safer spaces for those who experience racism), we collectively learn, empower each other, reflect on and raise awareness of intra-, interpersonal, structural, and institutional power asymmetries and how they impair political, societal participation and respectful human encounters. Through the media, we share personal stories, speak from diverse perspectives, and together stand up for humanity and equal rights in society.