Here is the Call for Particiapnts for our seminar ‘Climate beyond Classism – Empowerment retreat for socio-ecological change’ from 15 to 21 September 2025 at Haus des Wandels in Steinhöfel, Germany.
You can click on the headings to find out more.
About the Training
Do you sometimes feel out of place in conversations and discussions in political groups such as climate and environmental groups, and hesitate to share your thoughts? Does it make you angry when too little is done politically against environmental destruction and that this mainly affects people with lower incomes? Have you experienced social injustice and classism yourself and want to connect with others who share similar experiences?
Our week-long seminar, “Climate Beyond Classism – Empowerment Retreat for Socio-Ecological Change,” is the space for you! Together, we will explore how classism shapes our lives, relationships and society — and how it impacts political struggles for climate and environmental justice.
Classism is not a personal failure—it is systemic discrimination based on social background or position. It manifests in many ways: people with lower incomes, without university degrees, or from working-class families often earn significantly less, are misrepresented and stereotyped in the media and politics, and often have fewer means to adapt to or protect themselves from the effects of climate change and pollution. Classism is the foundation and constant driving force of capitalism, a system that exploits both people and nature.
The retreat is intended to be an empowering and solidarity-based exchange space for people who have own experiences of classism and are interested in climate and environmental issues. We want to use appreciative, creative and participatory methods to discuss classism and explore what our individual expereiences have to do with social structures. We will also examine how classism and capitalism affect our lives as well as climate and environmental issues. We want to learn from and with each other, build connections and networks, support each other against isolation and shame, and develop strategies to become more confident and capable in the face of discrimination.
Together, we will explore: How can climate and environmental movements become more inclusive and aware of classism? How can we take action for a fairer world? This retreat is for you to recharge, connect, and find new perspectives for socio-ecological change.
Hard Facts
When? 15.-21.09.2025 (Start: 15.09. around 18:30; End: 21.09., around 10:30)
Where? „Haus des Wandels” in Heinersdorf (Steinhöfel) approx. 30km west of Frankurt (Oder) and 60 km east of Berlin
Costs: Thanks to EU funding, all costs including meals, accommodation, travel expenses and the educational programme can be covered.
Accommodation: The retreat takes place in a project space with simple, mostly multi-bed rooms of various sizes. Needs and wishes regarding room occupancy will be requested separately in advance.
Meals & care work: The meals will be organised by the team; there will be plant-based meals. Care work is an important part of socio-ecological change. This is another reason why the group will participate in the preparation of meals and other care work tasks such as tidying up in small groups.
Access and barriers: The guest floor is on the 1st floor, there are only non-barrier-free shared bathrooms. The seminar room is also on the 1st floor (approx. 20 steps), as is the kitchen. If required, we can organise a wheelchair-accessible bedroom and bathroom at a neighbour’s house. If necessary, a seminar room on the ground floor could also be used. We try to organise the seminar as barrier-free as possible, but cannot guarantee that we have considered all possible barriers and listed them here, as we have not yet been in the house ourselves. We will have a quiet and retreat room in the seminar house.
If you have any other accessibility requirements or questions about your individual case, please let us know in the pre-registration form.
Language:The language used during the retreat will be English.We don’t expect you to be perfectly fluent (neither are we). If needed, we can offer some linguistic support. Let us know about your needs in the pre-registration form.
Children: The logistic circumstances are not the best for bringing your children to the seminar. We know that this can be an obstacle and are aware that offering childcare can encourage or enable the attendance in some cases. Thats why we will try our best to make your participation possible if you need to bring your children. Let es know about that in the pre-registration form.
Travels
The nearest train stations are Fürstenwalde (Spree) and Müncheberg (Mark), which are 12-15km away from the location and can be reached by regional trains. For the way from the stations to the house, there will be public buses or a shuttle organised by us.
Most of you will travel via Berlin which can be reached by many international bus and train connections.
Air travel contributes massively to the climate crisis. With our activities, we still want to enable international exchange while organising our structures in such a way that flights are only used in exceptional cases. We want as few people as possible to arrive and depart by plane and we know that it is for various reasons often more difficult for people from the poor and working class not to fly. In agreed exceptional cases, it is therefore also possible to fly to the training.
Participants will travel independently by public transport or in car pools. Participants from Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland will not be reimbursed for air travel costs. We will support participants from Spain, Greece and Latvia in finding ecological travel alternatives. In addition, we will probably be able to provide financial support for any necessary overnight accommodation during the travel.
Travelling costs are usually paid in advance by the participants and reimbursed by BuWa after the seminar If this is not possible for individuals, solutions can be found.
More detailed information on travelling, reimbursement of costs and climate-friendly travel is available after the confirmation of participation with the infosheet.
Content & Methods
We will use various interactive, participatory, and empowering methods such as group work, free writing, crafting zines, Theatre of the Oppressed, body and movement exercises, exhibitions, World Café, and more.
Below you will find a first overview of topics we would like to cover during the seminar. The seminar plan will be developed in more concrete terms, incorporating the wishes and suggestions of the entire group:
- Introduction to Classism and Climate/Environmental Justice and Capitalism
- Exchange on own experiences of classism in the climate and environmental justice movement and other (political) groups
- Self-Reflection and Biographical Reflection
- Emotions, Body and Classism
- Anti-Classist Environmental Work
- Utopias for climate and social justice
The retreat seminar thrives on the experiences and topics of the group. Parts of the seminar will be prepared and methodically organised by us as the facilitators, but there will also be room for an open space with the topics brought along by the participants.
Who is this seminar for?
The seminar is aimed at people who have own experiences with classism. This means anyone who has been given few ‘resources’ (money, education, social contacts, …) and has therefore experienced classism in some way, or is still learning that they have experienced it (whether directly through people or the structures of society). This can therefore relate to your current class position (i.e. your current financial situation) or to your class background (i.e. what environment you come from, how many resources your family had).
Are you wondering whether the seminar is the right place for you? If one or more of the following statements apply to you, we’d like to encourage you to sign up:
– I am a working-class child
– I am involuntarily unemployed
– I have no assets and have to support myself completely
– I do not have a school-leaving certificate
– I have completed a non-academic vocational training programme (e.g. apprenticeship)
– I grew up in precarious circumstances
– I grew up (partly) in child and youth welfare centres / I am a care leaver
– I directly experienced unemployment in my family
– My parents did not study
– I am the first generation in my family that studies/has studied
– I am or was affected by poverty
– I do a lot of unpaid care work and therefore cannot work full-time
– I live in precarious circumstances and did not choose this myself
– I was or am affected by homelessness
It is not easy to define and categorise classism, for example, there are also some people who feel caught between many stools. If in doubt, ask us.
Our aim with the seminar is to strengthen solidarity within the poor and working class in a broad sense, especially by recognising the different origins and forms of being affected by classism.
The seminar is aimed for people who are living in or have the passports of one of the following countries: Austria, Germany, Greece, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland or Spain.
The Training as „Saver Space“?
At the seminar, we will talk about structural discrimination and our own experiences, which can be emotional. We all have different backgrounds and social positions. It is therefore important for us to create a atmosphere in which everyone involved in the seminar feels as comfortable as possible and there is the opportunity to share experiences of discrimination, to engage in critical self-reflection, e.g. about one’s own privileges, and still have the space to empower each other.
We therefore ask all participants to bring a certain willingness and openness to engage with the topic. We look at the topic from a perspective that is critical of discrimination and, in addition to criticising classism, also place greater emphasis on anti-racist and queer-feminist approaches.
Registration/Application
In our experience, there may be a lot of people interested in a seminar like this. Therefore, please complete the application form by May 18th 2025 at the latest if you would like to take part:
https://cloud.freiheitswolke.org/apps/forms/s/TPXSHRQdHG6gDSimyBRPpg5F
We will then get back to you by June 2nd to let you know whether you have a place or are on the waiting list. If you urgently need earlier feedback for your planning, please get in touch with us.
It is very important for us, the project and the group that we can reliably plan who will be taking part. We therefore expect a binding confirmation or cancellation from you after our confirmation.
