Our mission statement
The strategic guidelines and organisational values of Deutsche Wanderjugend (DWJ) have been comprised into a mission statement with following four key priorities:
Out and about together
Experiencing being part of a community strengthens self-confidence; the support of the community offers space for experiences, encouraging people to try out new things and helping them to overcome challenges. This is where one can examine ones’ values, build friendships and explore new paths (in life).
For us, being out and about means literally being outside, hiking, exploring and camping. In addition, it means being adaptable, open to new and unfamiliar things, even unconventional ones.
Experiencing nature - protecting nature - shaping the environment around us
For a vivid understanding of the environment, both the experience of nature with our senses and the understanding of ecological interrelations are important. For us, nature experience is just as much about getting to know nature, as it is about subjective perception of it, such as the individual challenges in terms of physical endurance and navigation.
It is our objective to develop, through emotions and understanding, a commitment to nature conservation as a responsibility and standard in all areas of life. With this awareness, we want to actively shape our environment.
Exploring tradition and modernity
By traditions, we refer to the cultural traditions of past generations. However, culture is also shaped by current trends and developments. It is our objective to make the notions of heritage and history tangible. To do so, we engage with tradition in relation to its specific time.
We not only preserve and promote a variety of cultural traditions such as customs and rites, traditional clothing and dances, we also incorporate modern elements into our music and cultural education.
To see the traditional and the modern in relation to each other requires a critical view of both.
Encouraging democratic and social engagement
We encourage children and young people to engage themselves in the societal reality. In our educational work, we aim to foster skills such as judgement, tolerance, fairness and civil courage. The aim is to empower young people to take responsibility, take action with equality, actively participate in society and thus contribute in shaping the world in which they live in.