Democracy needs spaces

Listen to one another. Speak with one another. Discover common ground.

Five people sitting around a table in conversation. Beside them, a flip chart with handwritten notes from the discussion.

People need spaces where they can talk to one another, listen, and stay in the room when it gets uncomfortable. A Dialograum makes that space: a facilitated conversation on equal footing. Not ready-made answers, but open questions. Not point-scoring, but conversation. Not monologues, but dialogue.

Upcoming Dialograum in Berlin

Should proceedings to ban the AfD be applied for?

Thursday, 19:00 · Berlin (Lankwitz) · registration required

Format
Facilitated conversation, on equal footing
Place
Where people already are
Hosted by
Clubs, congregations, local groups

What we do

We are a group of committed volunteers who believe in democracy and in talking to one another. Our aim is for a Dialograum to be held everywhere in the country: a space that regularly brings people from every walk of life together where they live.

Initiative Dialograum gathers what comes out of these spaces and brings it together. We support local organisations and networks in establishing a Dialograum: with suggested topics, materials and help with organising, with contacts, but above all with approaches for facilitating and running one. Because conversations about democracy are hard, especially face to face, with people you have never met.

The initiative also collects the results. They are published here, so that what was said finds a hearing beyond those rooms.

More about the people behind Dialograum

What this is about

Three ideas we work from

Listening

The Dialograum brings people into conversation

Not to convince anyone, but so that people hear each other out. Nobody in a Dialograum has to change their mind. But you hear how others arrived at theirs. And facilitation helps with that.

Proximity

The Dialograum is where people already are

To the sports club, the parish, the community centre, the fire brigade. Places where people come together anyway, and which are not yet divided.

Openness

The Dialograum is open

A Dialograum is easy to join and belongs to no political camp. Its basis is the German constitution. Anyone willing to let others finish speaking can take part.

What connects us is that we listened to one another.

From a Dialograum
Take part

A Dialograum where you are?

We do not turn up uninvited. If you represent a club, a congregation or an organisation and would like to make a conversation possible, get in touch.

Get in touch