“There are so many people, of whom many foreign people show their love without thinking of profit
People serve people in crises and many moments
People turn to people when they are cold
People donate to people, people educate people. “

This is the first sentence of the song «Menschen» by the German Rapper UMSE. As the title says, this is devoted to the human being: there are good, evil, and those in between, there are big, small, old, young, very different characters with different character traits.

What is clear, however, is that more people want a very specific variety: “Positive people, I mean these people, who are never aggressive and restrict themselves to harmony.”

New, own video for the song

Because the song is so important from the very moment of his message and fits perfectly into our time, we decided to use it for our project. After all, it is about humanity, tolerance and integration. On the one hand, we will produce a new video of the song with the refugees as well as the pupils of the IKG. On the other hand, we would like to re-record it and let it be re-recorded by the project participants. The idea was for Tobias Dengler, grammar school teacher for German and history at the IKG, currently “seconded” as the class leader of the refugee classes at the Berufsschule.

Language challenge

However, in order to produce moving pictures to the song, it is important for us to get involved in the language and to understand the text, which is of course not self-evident to our young refugees. That is why we went through it in groupwork – in each case with the students of the IKG as mentors – have read it, discussed it and then finally gather ideas for the individual sequences to the video. For only those who understand the partly quite profound lines is able to realize a pictorial realization.

“The song fits very well with our theme,” says 16-year-old Sophia, who accompanies the refugees as an IKG student. “We explain to the refugees what they are doing and how the lines are to be understood.” The song shows that there are other sides and opportunities for people to get a better deal with each other. “

“I think it’s good that we’re doing something with music,” says 18-year-old Saimon from Eritrea. “It’s fun to make a new video for the song, I like the song because it’s about it “I can already understand the text, but sometimes it is hard for me to express myself.” Speaking and learning the German language is – apart from that From co-operation with German youngsters – an additional important reason for participating in the project. “Speak German and have fun – that’s why I come,” Saimon emphasizes.

Moving pictures

We have already begun with the visual implementation. That can be a lot of fun. But also a lot of patience had to be applied. “One is not the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, who has to make the decision, so do it or throw a coin,” raps Umse. The fact that it is not easy to show the thrown coin as a video sequence, our project participants have been able to convince themselves. It takes a few attempts until everyone is completely satisfied. Finally everything has to be right: light, shadow, position, litter of the coin, etc.

The 17-year-old Max, a student of the IKG, who is almost from the beginning, finds this project phase the most exciting. “It ‘s great to have the big picture now, to create a new music video, which makes sense and motivates, because music is added as a new component to the project, and it’ s even more interesting Is so multi-dimensional.”

Everyone can, of course, bring their own ideas and suggestions – everything is taken into account and tried to realize. Zeya, a 20-year-old from Iraq, is particularly pleased with the project: “Everyone has an idea, that is important. We eat and play and work together, that makes me great fun.”

But there is still much to be done. In the next step, we will cut past video material – matching the lyrics. And we are all very excited about what will come out in the end.