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Ksenia Ryklin (she/her)
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📧 info@highartbureau.com
Anna Andrievskaya (she/her)
Community, Projects and Communication
📧 pr@highartbureau.com
Rita Sosedow (she/her)
Team Lead and Project Management
📧 rita@highartbureau.com
Nathalie Wanzek (she/her)
(maternity leave)
Project & Event Manager
Olivia Kim Favorite (she/her)
Social Media and Communication
📧 pr2@highartbureau.com
Wheelchair basketball doing school |
Wewillrollyou – Wheelchairbasketball doing school at schools in Munich
High Art Bureau GmbH is proud to present the project We Will Roll You. Since 2018 we have been helping the sports club RBB München E.V. to get a grant for their school project. From fundraising to PR and project management, we were happy to contribute our knowledge to such an important and great initiative!
Inclusion is a big issue in Europe. However, many public institutions do not really know how to behave so that inclusion becomes a “natural way” to live, learn and work.
In team sports, everyone brings their advantages to their group and has to be part of it, no matter what. We bring these two things together to make the inclusive way of school life as easy as being part of a team.
The idea behind the project is to bring children with and without disabilities together to play basketball.
Wheelchair basketball puts everyone on the same level, with the same starting position and the same challenges. Regardless of background, gender or disability, every child has to learn the same rules of communication and behaviour on the basketball court.
In 2019-2020 we had the opportunity to bring this idea of communication, behaviour and attitude on the same level to your school, to show students and interested children how easy and fun it can be to live in an inclusive society.
This is how it works:
That’s what the participants say:
“Super, this is the real inclusion!” (Ludwig, 14, wheelchair bound)
“You can hardly get this sport experience in the daily routine, because you need a wheelchair. The play was great!” (Tini, 18)
“It was cool to spin in a wheelchair. Even while dribbling”.(Erik 11)
On 24 und 25 of august the Iguanas hosted a Wheelchairbasketball Clash with the participation of the national teams from Russia, Austria and Switzerland. Wewillrollyou Project invited all children and young people to try this amazing team sport and participate in a clash with the professional players.
Are people from different cultures and countries able to communicate without using a spoken language?
We say YES! For this reason, we invited young people from 6 to 18 and their parents to our festival “Finding a common language”
The festival took place 2023 in 3 locations over one weekend each:
12-14.5.2023 with the Iguanas in Munich/ Germany. Program
30.6.- 2.7.2023 with the Circus Upsala in Zeitz/ Germany. Program
22- 24.9.2023 with Unison in Yerevan/ Armenia. Program
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What happened:
In the capital of Bavaria:
At the festival in Munich, our focus was on wheelchair basketball as a non-verbal means of communication, including interaction and breaking down of barriers and advantages. By participating in different training stations, participants learned about different aspects of wheelchair basketball—from wheelchair handling to dribbling and dice throwing.
The festival programme was complemented by activities of the invited partner organisations from Zeitz and Yerevan. Upsala Zirkus e.V. offered a minilaboratory with circus elements and Unison NGO invited to join a move and dance workshop to experience the language of movement.
Afterwards, the participants tried out what they had learned together with the professional athletes in a wheelchair basketball tournament.
As a highlight, the german national wheelchair basketball team, (U22), the team from Yerevan and the Iguanas presented a master class in wheelchair basketball and held a friendly tournament.
The festival in Zeitz, the home of Upsala Zirkus e.V., became a big creative laboratory: circus elements and wheelchair basketball supported by music as an international and non-verbal language created a new inclusive safe space where everyone was able to express themselves.
The young participants learned various circus disciplines, wheelchair basketball elements, created music with unusual objects and showed it all off with a wonderful performance at the end of the festival.
Armenian music was also part of the program: Artak Khachatryan took the participants into another world of duduk music and Rasmila Alaverdyan taught the basics of Armenian music with children and young people.
In the capital of the oldest Christian country in the world:
At the end of September, we went to Armenia: Here the focus was on nonverbal communication in general.
Regardless of the circumstances, it is very important to motivate children and young people to live together and shape the future, regardless of different cultures, countries, languages or disabilities. For two days, children and young people were able to participate in various activities, learn new things and get to know each other informally despite language barriers.
Not only newcomers from Armenia, but also from Georgia participated in the festival. Ten young people, their parents and companions from the Georgian Down Syndrome Association attended.
Unison NGO with many local actors offered various activities: “Inclusion in action”, games where everyone could experience disability: Using wheelchairs, finding a seat as a “blind person”, etc.; darts and/or bocce competition; first aid course; learning an inclusive dance; learning the basics of Armenian sign language. The wheelchair basketball players of the RBB München e.V. were also on hand and, as always, had a full gym with youngsters eager to participate in a tryout.
The Upsala Zirkus e.V. prepared many exciting circus activities.
At the opening of the festival in the Goethe Center Yerevan, the award-winning inclusive chamber choir “Paros” performed, complemented by a discussion with Maka Chkaidze from Georgia.
During the three festivals, three video messages were recorded connecting the participants from Yerevan, Munich and Zeitz.
About our partners:
Unison NGO for Support of People with Special Needs is a leading organization advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Armenia. With the mission to achieve full inclusion of PWDs, Unison regularly designs and implements grant-funded projects and other activities aimed at improving physical accessibility and access to information, promoting PWDs’ placement in gainful employment, fostering inclusive education, enhancing coordination and cooperation between disability-oriented organizations and other initiatives aimed at improved general well-being and social, cultural and economic integration of PWDs.
Zirkus Upsala e.V. is a non-profit organization that has been reintegrating children and young people from social risk groups into society using the methods of circus education in St. Petersburg since 2000. Due to the political situation, the members of the organisation had to flee to Germany, where they now combine professional circus and theatre arts directly with social and refugee work.
Since its foundation, the wheelchair basketball club RBB München Iguanas e.V. has been working with young people and schoolchildren from Munich and the surrounding area and has also run several inclusion workshops for refugees. Wheelchair basketball is the only sport in which people with and without disabilities, regardless of age and gender, can compete with and against each other on an equal footing. The wheelchair becomes the sport equipment. No language skills are needed for wheelchair basketball, as all communication is non-verbal and intuitively.
Antares Media Holding is a publishing and printing house as well as advertising and marketing agency that uses modern technologies to ensure high quality products. The company was founded in 1992 and has published more than 2000 books to date.
The project is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office as part of the programme “Expansion of Cooperation with Society in the Eastern Partnership Countries and Russia” and by the Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Labour and Social Affairs:
Find a common language with “We Will Roll You”! |
The “We Will Roll You” project is a long-standing initiative of the High Art Bureau. Since 2018, we have been supporting the sports club RBB München e.V. with this exceptional project focused on inclusion. From fundraising to PR and project management consulting, we are committed to social issues and are proud to contribute to such an important project! Since 2022, this inclusive project has also supported refugee children and young people in adapting to their new environment and making new friends.
Wheelchair basketball is the only sport where people with and without disabilities can compete equally against each other. A wheelchair is not an obstacle but a unique sports device. However, this is not the only reason why this sport is even an Olympic discipline. Another special feature of wheelchair basketball is that no language skills are needed, as almost everything works through non-verbal communication and intuition.
In light of the success of our project in the past, we are excited to open a new chapter of “We Will Roll You” with additional workshops this year.
On November 10, 2024, up to 100 refugee children and young people in Munich will have the opportunity to try wheelchair basketball and discover it as a method for inclusive interaction.
“Find a common language with “We Will Roll You” is aimed at refugee children and young people aged 12 and older who have come to Munich due to unrest, war, or displacement, and aims to help these young people find their place in their new environment.
The workshop will take place on November 10, 2024, at the Säbener Straße sports hall (Säbener Straße 49) and will be conducted by trainers from Rollstuhlbasketball München e.V. Want to participate? Send us a short email at info@highartbureau.com or simply show up!
The project is supported by Stiftung Soziales München of Stadtsparkasse München.
Towards Equality: Culture and Education in Dialogue |
Accessibility and equitable access in society are increasingly pressing topics. Despite being a fundamental right, people with disabilities are still unable to participate equally in social life in any country in the world.
At the end of October 2024, we organized a German-Armenian panel discussion on accessibility in education and culture titled “On the Path to Equal Collaboration – Culture and Education in Dialogue” in Yerevan. This event was supported by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Armenia and the Goethe-Zentrum Yerevan.
We anticipated that the topic of accessibility would spark great interest in Armenia—and indeed, numerous representatives from museums, theaters, film festivals, sports institutions, NGOs, and educational organizations came together to actively discuss “equitable access in society” and share their experiences. Despite legal progress, it remains a fact that people with disabilities in no country can fully and equally participate in social life.
Dr. Christiane Schrübbers, a museum educator and inclusion consultant from Berlin, shared insights into the German cultural landscape. She emphasized that all people, regardless of disability, have an equal right to cultural participation. Making culture accessible to all is not only about physically adapting museums or theaters but also about presenting content in ways that address and include people with diverse needs.
“Culture is more than just entertainment; it is a space where we collectively discuss how we want to live as a society. Therefore, it is essential to make cultural spaces both physically and intellectually accessible. This means removing structural barriers but also fostering an inclusive “Mindset reflected in the offerings and themes of cultural institutions. Only in this way can a society emerge where everyone can actively and equally participate in culture and education,” said Dr. Christiane Schrübbers.
While societal barriers often begin in people’s minds, they are primarily rooted in the infrastructure of our communities. For centuries, streets, buildings, and all facilities were designed exclusively for people without physical or intellectual disabilities. To this day, accessibility is not a mandatory requirement for building permits.
Cultural and educational institutions are no exception. Typically, with 2-3 wheelchair spaces in the audience, a level entrance, and perhaps a restroom equipped to meet accessibility standards, we have reached the extent of what is often considered “equal access” to culture and education. The situation is even more challenging on and behind the stage. Accessing theater or concert stages or working in libraries or educational institutions is frequently difficult or outright impossible: accessibility remains a significant challenge.
As always, there are pioneers in this area—people who advocate for accessibility, form initiatives, launch projects, and implement practical examples of how accessibility can be successfully achieved in cultural and educational institutions. In Germany, in particular, there is a wealth of experience, studies, and exemplary measures due to an active engagement with the topic. This is where our project comes in.
We aim to connect established pilot initiatives and experts in accessible culture and education, complemented by an infrastructural perspective, with individuals in Armenia who lead cultural and educational institutions and regularly grapple with the issue of accessibility. The goal is to provide inspiration, facilitate the exchange of experiences, and discuss potential solutions.
Dr. Christiane Schrübbers is a museum educator and consultant for inclusion and accessibility in cultural institutions and museums. Since 1981, she has been involved in training museum guides and developing methods that address the needs of people with disabilities. Her projects include organizing tactile tours, sign language tours, and adapting museum texts into easy-to-read formats. She was also responsible for creating the “Checklist for Accessible Exhibition Design.” In her work, Dr. Schrübbers actively involves people with disabilities as “experts in their own right” in advising and reviewing the accessibility of exhibitions.
The project is supported by the German Embassy in Armenia and the Goethe Center in Yerevan.