Day 5- Dresden

Dresden has been super cool. We went on a walking tour of the town this morning and there's plenty to see. The town, which has over 550,000 people, has been around since 1200 C.E. In 1945 Dresden was bomb flat in one night by the US and England and 35,000 people died. The town has been rebuilt now, many times with original materials salvaged from the original buildings. The town lies along the Elbe River and has a "new town" that was built in the eighteen hundreds. We checked out several churches, a massive opera house, the town square, the royal palace, and several open -air malls. We came across some excavations sites where the Dresden people are still cleaning up bombed out areas and are going to recreate the buildings that once stood there.

In the afternoon, we were scheduled to meet with two different groups from Dresden. The NDC is a group that goes from school to school teaching students to be courageous in the face of racism and discrimination. Just like everywhere else suffering through the economic problems of today, people are trying make ends meet. During those times, people tend to focus on minorities and immigrants as a scapegoat for the problems. Germany is no different and has seen a rise in hate crimes against those groups. This group uses what the German schools call "project days" to teach sixth grade and up students to understand others better and everyone's rights. It's a very hands-on type of instruction they do and it seems to be paying big dividends from their result research, but just like in the states, are always struggling to get enough funding to stay operational.

The second session was with the group that leads a confederation of the largest unions in the region. They are a member of union groups represented in the European Union, which includes 19 countries. They explained how they are invited into the factories when workers have issues and problems with their employers to help resolve them. As this was formerly Communist East Germany, there seems to be a strong acceptance of the union here. Much of it discussed the structure and arrangements that helps create the membership and responsiveness of this group. That bottle with an apple on it is a tasty mix of apple juice and carbonated water, which is very popular here.

I'll leave you with a shot of what the church in Dresden looked like at night!