This year's Europa-Kiezfest on May 25, 2024, at Leon-Jessel-Platz in Berlin-Wilmersdorf takes place two weeks before the European elections under the motto "Strengthen Europe – Vote Europe". In this spirit, students from the Nelson Mandela School have engaged on-site with a "Game Lab Europe" focused on democracy and extremism prevention. Using three computer games, they engaged festival visitors in discussions about politics, democratic values, right-wing extremism, and fake news.

In a preparatory workshop, students from class 10c and the WPU art course 11abc of the Nelson Mandela School worked with three free "serious games" which they presented at the Europa-Kiezfest:

1. "Wie entscheidest du?": This game is a playful alternative to the Wahl-O-Mat, helping players make political decisions.
2. "KonterBUNT": In this game, players learn how to counter common prejudices and discriminatory remarks.
3. "Harmony Square": This game raises awareness about various manipulation techniques used in social media.

Festival visitors tried out the games under the guidance of the students, either on their own devices or on school laptops in the school's tiny house. The project was led by Detlef Wingerath, Nati Schneider, and Sainza Fernandez, along with Jakob Saß (historian and game expert). The project is funded by the Democracy Office Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, in collaboration with "Miteinander im Kiez" and the friends of Nelson Mandela School.

We, Lynda Sylvester, Tobias Sadrowski, Kai Linke and Felix Theuner, are currently on our Erasmus+ exchange in Ankara to observe lessons and get to know the school system here. Our hosts have put together an extensive, varied and very interesting program for us, during which we are visiting state and private schools and kindergartens in the city. 

We would like to share our observations and thoughts with you in the Padlet. 

A total of 1838 relay teams took part on May 14th 2024, the first day of this year's TEAM Relay over 5x 5 km through the Tiergarten. Our school sports club SCI-NMS started with 2 teams, SCI-NMS Youth and a team of parents and staff, SCI-NMS. The race started at 6.30 pm in sunny weather. Our youth team had a cool starting number and raced as Team 1. However, despite being born between 2005 and 2009, they surprisingly finished high in all age groups. Carlo and Ben (Abi Q4), Andrii (IB 12), Tizian (10d) and Sebastian (9d) ran fast lap times in the youth team. 
Other students from the Abitur class came to the running course to cheer for their friends. After just 1:54:09 h, they finished in 61st place in the one-day rankings. Jannik ( finished in 8th place, 16:57 min.), Jullian, Marco, Alexis and Lucas (Abi Q2) started in the SCI-NMS team and finished in 51st place after 1:51:46 hours.
Congratulations for the great team races!Let's see who will run in the TEAM Relay next year?  

Jörg Fraikin SCI-NMS

To mark this year's Girls' Day, a delegation of eight ninth-grade students were invited to the Chancellery for a meet & greet with Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz to kick off Girls' Day 2024. 

Ms. Lichtenstein accompanied the group, which was able to explore a variety of offers from the fields of technology, computer science, industry, science and research in an experience course. 
The students Maria Maksimovna Lebedeva, Sophia Göy, Anna Maria Piaz, Fabienne Mendes, Aanya Suhane, Hana Asees, Mufaro Zambezi and Lavinia Baumann presented individual science-based projects to the Chancellor and were able to discuss politics and economy with him in a subsequent round of talks.
The aim of the event was to break down stereotypes in the choice of studies and careers and to promote individual interests and strengths in mint-based areas.

We would like to congratulate our student Mufaro Zambezi, who won the Girls' Day prize awarded by Chancellor Scholz! She received a voucher redeemable for her entire class for a full-day AI workshop.

On April 22 and 23 2024, the Nelson Mandela School was visited by six principals from an Vienna Erasmus+ delegation. The participants attended lessons, took part in the management meeting and talked to colleagues about the current education situation in the countries.

The Austrian principals were particularly interested in the question of independent and self-organized learning, including with our internal Google Workspace, the explicit internal support opportunities for our students and lesson planning.

In total, over 30 principals from Vienna traveled to Berlin and visited six different schools. The exchange was organized by the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family and will result in a return visit for our school management (and the other Berlin schools) to Vienna.

Our Erasmus+ activities are picking up speed. From 22.4. to 24.4.2024 four teachers from Ankara visited the secondary school campus of the Nelson Mandela School as part of a job shadowing mobility. During the school day, the Turkish teachers observed lessons in various subjects taught by different colleagues and visited Berlin in the afternoons and evenings. In addition to observing lessons, they were able to talk to Christiane Reiß-Schmidt, the head of the middle school, Fabian Wandtke, who is in the process of setting up a maker space, and Annemieke Akkermans, the head of Media Studies at the school. The focus was on the implementation of digital learning and the associated personal responsibility of the pupils.

On April 24, the Nelson Mandela School celebrated the 10th Fashion Revolution Day after the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, burying more than 1,300 people. The tailors, working in catastrophic conditions, had to produce clothes around the clock for major European fashion brands in order to meet the industrialized nations' demand for fast fashion.

For the past ten years, we have commemorated this tragedy by joining the International Fashion Revolution as a school community, which takes place one week around the 24th of April every year. This year, as every year, we opened up the opportunity for around 125 students to learn how to use sewing machines expertly, turning discarded clothes into new functional items and garments. We were supported by fashion designer Wilfried Pletzinger and hobby tailor Birgit M'Pandzou as well as students Lotte Holland (11c) and Lian Baumann (10c). In addition, five learning groups were able to learn about water pollution and its prevention from the "Sailors Clean" initiative, which was founded by former NMS student Leander Baumann.

Once again, the NMS Primary school took part in an initiative to promote a safer journey to school. On Tuesday 23^rd April, the street around P23 was closed to traffic, between 7:30am and 8:15am. A 'short-but-sweet' car-free haven was created, a stark difference from the regularly chaotic and occasionally dangerous scene that our children have to navigate on their way to school. The NMS Primary students were able to unleash their street-chalk creativity, turning Pfalzburger Straße into a giant artwork. The Parents' Café took to the street, accompanied by the NMS Apparel Store. And some artistic students, under the expert supervision of Lex, painted a joyfully vibrant zebra crossing, in the place where we really should have one! Sadly, the NMS orchestra was not allowed to perform on the street, but they still put on a fantastic show in the Foyer. What a lovely way to start the day! It was a truly happy occasion, enjoyed by staff, parents, and students alike.