Compassion Project of the Stetten School Centre 2023

Learning groups 10 at Stetten School Centre completed the community school's Compassion project this year, which was resumed after Corona and piloted by school chaplain Martina Straub in 2019.  

The model for their project, Compassion at grammar schools, was launched in the early 1990s on behalf of the German Bishops' Conference and was awarded the Alcuin Award of the European Parents' Association for outstanding educational projects because of its high quality. During the Compassion period, pupils make themselves available for social tasks in the care and accompaniment of people in need of assistance, in order to mature personally through their experience. Students of all grades can participate. The project always ends with a written documentation, which can look like an internship portfolio or a poster board.

 "We try to work as low-threshold as possible in order to make the core experience of care tangible," Martina Straub explains the objective of her project at the community school. "We are primarily concerned with experiencing satisfaction, giving each other pleasure, spending time together."

The students from class 10 are impressed by their experiences:

"You are immersed in a completely different world," says Lucia Herre, summing up the difference to her everyday school life.

"It brought me closer to active charity," says Vanessa Butz, assessing her time with a demented artist whose household was due to be cleared.

"The insights into another life are enriching," Jonas Jacob affirms. "We should do projects like this more often.

At the presentation of the Compassion documentations last week, a display wall with photo impulses was designed together with Pastor Schelle for the Protestant Religion Department and Yasemin Karacan for the Ethics Department, which is placed in the foyer of the school centre and will also be set up at the graduation ceremony of the tenth graders.

Martina Straub symbolically handed out a mirror heart and cards with good words to the students: "This experience is inscribed in your heart," she said. "It is unique."