FUSION – Intercultural Projects Berlin e.V. is a non-profit association that combines education and youth work with art. It focuses on the conception and implementation of socio-cultural projects. For over two decades, its work was directed primarily toward children and young people in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods. In such areas, meaningful leisure opportunities are rare, either due to a lack of provision or financial barriers. Often, young people are left with nothing but the street.

FUSION e.V. created spaces where young people could engage in creative activities, communicate with one another, develop their own ideas, discover new skills, and test their abilities. In the Neukölln district, this gave rise to FUSIONSTREET with the Youth Club MANEGE, which the association ran on behalf of the Neukölln district council from 2002 to 2012. Many projects were implemented there, despite the frequent challenges of working with young people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Violence prevention—whether in dealing with other cultures and religions, or with gender-based and sexual discrimination—was a recurring theme.

Workshops and open youth programs addressed a wide spectrum of issues, with art playing a fundamental role as a universal form of communication that transcends languages and inherited thought patterns. Music, theater, dance, costume-making, mask and sculpture building, as well as film, all became central tools for self-expression and awareness-building. Creativity not only fostered acceptance and respect but also taught young people to take responsibility in dealing with people and things.

The results of this work were not hidden away but presented publicly—whether at the Carnival of Cultures with a massive audience, at street festivals, concerts, theater performances, parties, or unconventional exhibitions. The pride in their achievements and the recognition they received boosted self-confidence and helped young people find their way into adult life in a complex world. This creative and artistic approach went beyond traditional social work and offered youth work new methods for successful community development and urban regeneration.

FUSION e.V. received basic funding for its work in MANEGE and FUSIONSTREET through service contracts with the Neukölln youth services department. Additional funding for individual projects had to be raised separately, supplemented at times by artistic commissions. Start-up financing for the expansion of FUSIONSTREET in 2002/2003 and for many socio-cultural projects in this context came from the federal-state program “Social City.”

Between 2001 and 2003, also funded by Social City, FUSION carried out several large-scale art projects in Marzahn in cooperation with the UNO Youth Club and other local organizations. These projects brought together young people from Marzahn and Neukölln—two very different social worlds often marked by prejudice. Joint creative work helped break down these barriers and foster mutual understanding.

After ending its work in Neukölln in 2012, FUSION shifted its focus to Brandenburg. From 2013 to 2015, the association ran an art workshop in Strausberg, organizing projects for children and young people, financed largely through its own resources and volunteer work. In 2014, the workshop hosted the Erasmus+ project “Creative Space Strategies” with participants from 11 European countries. The project explored how social spaces subjected to commercial interests could be reclaimed by residents through creative action—building on earlier experiences in Neukölln and Marzahn, which had revealed both the potential and the limits of self-determination in the face of political and economic pressures.

From 2015 onward, as migration from war-torn regions such as Syria and Afghanistan increased, FUSION placed a stronger focus on integration and the role of communication in this process. In 2016 and 2017, supported by Aktion Mensch and the Berlin Youth and Family Foundation, FUSION organized the Creative Communication Camp – FUSION Communications Workshop with refugee youth in various locations across Berlin. The project aimed to provide newcomers with a complex picture of the city and the country, enabling them to act more independently in their new situation and motivating them to take on responsibility for others as active participants in the integration process.

At the same time, FUSION participated in the Holiday School project, organized by the Zukunftsstiftung Bildung in GLS Treuhand e.V. Thirty children from refugee backgrounds, who otherwise attended separate classes in regular schools, were able to improve their German skills and learn about life in Germany through a program combining language learning with theater. This creative approach to language acquisition proved highly effective and supported the children’s integration into the regular school system, despite its frequent struggles with accommodating large numbers of migrant students.

Most of FUSION’s projects for children and young people aimed to compensate for the educational deficits produced by a struggling school system—particularly among socially disadvantaged groups—by applying imaginative, creative methods. While these efforts were beneficial, they could not change the systemic shortcomings of education in Germany. FUSION’s work was classified strictly as leisure activity, separate from formal education, meaning its positive impacts rarely reached into the bureaucratically administered education system.

Organizations like FUSION e.V. rely on external funding to operate. Public and private grants are always tied to programmatic guidelines, often targeting the resolution of acute social issues with innovative methods. Projects are typically limited in time, and even when successful, rarely become permanently established. The funding system is built on a hollow notion of “innovation” and in practice undermines sustainability.

As funding sources shrink, organizations with good ideas and strong social impact face increasingly precarious conditions. Motivation and commitment often rely on self-exploitation, leading to burnout, frustration, or forced conformity to rules that may be ineffective but are required for survival.

To break free of this dilemma, FUSION sought ways to preserve its conceptual autonomy in developing socially relevant projects while building greater economic stability.

This search led to the creation of ZEBRA KAGEL, FUSION’s current project. For years, the association sought a suitable place for unconventional ideas and projects, for critical thinking, communication, dialogue, and collaboration.

In 1996, together with the trias Foundation, FUSION acquired a former children’s holiday camp from GDR times, including three hectares of land in Grünheide-Kagel, 40 km outside Berlin. A 99-year heritable building right agreement with the foundation ensures that the site will never fall prey to speculation but will remain dedicated exclusively to the purposes defined by FUSION: education, art, and culture—brought together programmatically under the name ZEBRA.