 Thank you. I'm very glad to be here. I'm from the city of Leipzig. I work in a club called Elipa Manoke and I've been dealing with awareness for a number of years and I have been sent here from an initiative called Clubs are Culture. That is an alliance of various clubs that want to strive for clubs being recognized as a culture and most people might wonder why actually and that is what I would like to explain. We as clubs find ourselves in a position of having an educating role and we want to support newcomers. We have an artistic approach or intentions and we want to strive for tolerance integration things that in the normal world and the regular world are not given sadly. We are going to talk about awareness today and that is a topic that is very abstract which is why I'm going to give you a bit of theory and a lot of examples for each item so let's start with the standard definition to be aware as English means something like to be conscious and it's about creating a protected or safe space. It's a verbal work so it's not the same as security work. Security is a physical kind of work but awareness is about clarification about talking about giving information about helping in problematic situations. We have three main areas that I'm going to talk about when it comes to awareness there are many more. Let's have the next slide please. I'm going to stick to three areas because otherwise it's going to be too broad first one sexism in legislation we have the presumption of innocence which means that if there is rape or other severe intrusions then normally the presumption of innocence means that the wrong person is believed we would like to turn this around we would like to create a safe space often they will not be witnesses we don't want to be judges anyway we want to create safety and we want to make sure that information we receive is the truth so we are trying to recognize the definition of the power of defining the I'm going to talk about that more later and the other question is the other issue is racism questions like oh your German is so good and the question but where do you actually come from and people would ask me where does my co-worker come from and I would respond from the city of Halle and the question would then continue well I would say from France depends on France so white people don't often experience this but people of color experience it every day so the awareness approach is something that we we used to make to explain to people why this is a burden and we would like we don't want that it helps it prevents people from being recognized and fully accepted and positive racism of course I'm not going to talk about that that much is another issue here and often we accept people in clubs that would normally have problems of being accepted into spaces we're talking about people of color that being are being excluded through to the color of skin that are giving us skeptical grounds and we would like to change that the next large issue is queer animosity or queerphobia not just about homosexuality it's also the question why are you visiting this toilet and not the other toilet how do you define yourself I don't excite except as you define yourself as trans I refuse to accept that you are that you want to be dressed in that way and especially in clubs we have this huge issue of free spaces where people can out themselves and we're very happy that people feel able to do that and we want to create the freedom that people maybe grew up in a small city can see oh this is amazing there are people here that maybe openly gay openly lesbian and nothing is done nothing no harm happens to them maybe I can out myself here as well and maybe this could be the space where a man dares to put on the dress or woman dares to put on a moustache so creating a space where these things are allowed the power of definition is the concept that we work with and that means that a person that has something happening to them is able to define well how this felt for them what does what that means for them we don't have the right to tell them oh it's not that bad or this is super bad the people that are affected have the power to define this and this is also about power because these people can decide what the consequences are this could be a clarification in a talk the call for an apology or an expulsion and there is this one exemption and that is the house rules the legal rights of someone who runs the place if a person does not want someone to be expelled but that person that has but but the person who this is about has broken house rules then it can be the landlord that can decide to expel them anyway so how do we deal with the perspective of the people affected this is very important I'm going to come to this in the examples too how can we from the outside assess whether this is a bad situation or not awareness starts at a very early point which you will see in the examples these are very everyday situations that keep happening so it's not that we get involved in a rape situation or sexual abuse or a very bad remark and we start earlier I've given you a few examples to you a small trigger warning here these are uncomfortable situations people that are affected by sexism might want to consider if this is the right point to stop but there are unpleasant examples so we have someone grabbing someone you know how it works there is a queue at the Lou and someone is pushing through many people are wearing a bag and on their stomach and that might perhaps touch someone's bottom and the person would say the person would say I've been grabbed at the bottom and the other person might say oh this is just my bag that I was wearing is this just an excuse and this is where enormous society we would use the presumption of innocence in normal society the solution would be to talk to the person that is supposed to have transgressed and that person would say I'm sorry it was just the bag I was wearing I'm I'm going to be more careful in the future or the person might say oh what does that person actually what's their problem and that second person would then not fit into our safe space concept and important point here it's not just about expulsion it is about whether someone fits into the safe space concept and expulsion is the last resort the next item these are things that we all know we have all experienced this it could be in a public space people two people scream yell at each other someone keeps trying to hug someone of a female and that female is pushing them away but that doesn't stop the behavior so you would now try to drag the person the transgressing person away but we are have this other perspective we would go to the person affected and affected and ask them how are you is everything okay do you know this person and sometimes the response might be please help but it could also be oh this is my little brother and he's just getting on my nerves he's just completely drunk and I want to get him home I would like to continue being going out I'll just get him some water so that you get better so that is the perspective of the person affected it's not for us from the outside to decide even if the situation seems drastic it's not for us to decide we know this from the street someone might get into a fight some you might just not know how to behave the next situation is okay there are some issues here with the slides we have two people that when we've noticed that one says hey you you whore you bitch and we could ask around in their friends and we might find that this is normal in this kind of social context people have the right to act to behave to each other any way they want but in a public space we would tell them oh come on you are using certain words here that are discriminating and others might hear them and we want everyone to have fun so maybe these kind of jokes is something you'd better leave aside here and take to your home and leave them at home and the last situation that I that is very common in clubs the people that stares the person that stares someone extremely stares at someone's t-shirts that t-shirts might have an inscription and the person might think oh I want to read this he maybe is a bit beyond it pasted already and and normally you would tell the person affected if you have a problem with people staring you don't go to the club that's not the way we want to do it we are going to ask the person hey what happened here why do you stare at this person did you actually notice that you stare at them and then depends on the response if the person is unable to respond then maybe it is time to send them home if they don't realize how they are simply a nuisance to other people but if they say oh I was dreaming sorry I wasn't quite with it I'm very sorry then maybe the point would be you're still welcome here because that is the concept of awareness we don't expect two people to be perfect we don't want to be at the police we just want to be able to approach people that behave badly and tell them that that is what they are doing so we have okay we're switching slides yes sorry we have a few technical issues here I hope you can forgive us that so aftercare so people about things happen in clubs very bad things can happen so there might be video recordings that were made on toilets in a festival that was a story and clubs are not protected from that either however large security concept might be things happen someone might have overdosed someone might want to get someone home and abuse the situation so many things that we have to deal with and the point might be reached where we have to do some aftercare so we need to be able to contact people we maybe don't ask these people to use Instagram or other official channels not the official email address there might be a very discriminating experience in normal circumstances I don't want to talk to the office then but I want to have someone that I can save feel safe that I feel safe talking to you so there should be a number or a contact that specifically leads to the awareness group so that you might offer the person I'm going to call you a taxi I might even even if the perpetrator has left I might even offer them a free ticket for the next event because I want to show you that we found you it was courageous of you to come here and to be open and you are very welcome here and part of that might be that I call them a taxi depending on the size of the city it might be a women's taxi there are emergency numbers that are required in extreme cases maybe if a rape has occurred it is very very important to get them to the emergency treatment get them diagnosed and examined also if there is drug abuse certain drugs have to be extracted from them but they leave the body quickly so that you need testing so it's very important to have the emergency numbers available where no way I can send that person where they are safe and be sure that an aftercare is possible this also answers very since but I have to repeat again that's not how it is there are some bad cases but normally earlier you you'd be laughed at but these days it should be the case that people are taken seriously and that they're given good care when someone asks for help what I find very positive is that criminal reports are being made which used to be a very difficult struggle because it's very hard to accept that you are have been the victim of a crime that is a very bad thing to feel like and if a report is being made often the first question that police ask what were you wearing and that is not nice even if I'm in the nude there is that isn't a reason for someone to grab me and that is important to us so there are items where awareness stops these are physical altercations that to get involved there is not something that an awareness crew can do and that is not the objective of awareness it's about clarification enlightenment and help so that is where it stops the physical conflict and there's always the question who is affected if I am a self-affected if I have become the victim of a bad remark or a physical transcription or whether I just see something for example the dance for example maybe just siblings having some beef that doesn't give me the rights to expel them maybe I'm not directly affected even if I'm triggered maybe and triggered situations very often occur for example there is my ex-boyfriend maybe I don't like them they're not something I feel comfortable with someone reminds me of that person um so um I as an awareness person might feel unwell in that context but that's not that other person's fault so that is an issue where awareness should be suspended and where you might have to tell someone maybe you should just do some introspection and find out why you are being triggered in this way if that person would perhaps dance at others in a provocative way if there's a negative influence maybe you have to first find out what is happening within yourself another thing that happens a lot in clubs or in your friendship people are in a relationship and are in the process of separating and are entering into fights a lot they don't want to see each other anymore both go to the club and say I don't want the other person to be here so they would give you a huge talk of what is wrong what they've done in the relationship we thought about how to deal with this for a long time and the solution is both have to go and maybe find out who would go to the club when it's not the club's responsibility to be the peace army in a relationship and we're not going to play psychologists here that's where it stops another thing that I talked about is the house rules or the right of the landlord fortunately you don't have to resort to that very often only in very severe situations if it's not just about some bad remarks but actually physical transgressions and I would then go to someone and say this was a very bad remark and if I have here as a response that foreigners have no place in this country maybe then it is the time to use the right of the landlord and expel them and what's important is to always say that whatever we do we have to make it clear to the affected person it is cool that you are dealing with the situation it's you are courageous for approaching me thanks for doing that my problem is I've talked to the person and now it's me who doesn't feel well comfortable anymore that is what you call the taking on the blame people don't often want to have people expelled they prefer some clarification some some understanding but if I if if someone says oh your German is so good maybe that is meant in the best with the best intention maybe it's just uh that just needs some kind of clarification so if that's what the person affected says but it's our decision to expel them anyway then we have to take the responsibility for that so we are taking the blame so that the person does not feel guilty about what they have started and now these are some very theoretical issues some practical issues this all sounds very nice people are going to party and talk to people how does it all work in practice so how should a crew look like there should be gender diverse this is very important because depending on the actual situation we need various kinds of contact people to talk to especially male perpetrators don't take female crew members seriously but male people that are affected may want to talk to a man on the other way around so we will see that the crew is has a diverse and maybe includes a queer person as well so that we can definitely not just have men and women in the conventional sense and it's always important to work as a couple so that one person will talk to the person affected and the other person to the other person to the perpetrator perhaps and that's not easy to do if you're on your own you have a lot of distance to cover in the club you may have to pursue someone because you don't know where they're going so you have to be on your toes and don't be alone also for psychological reasons it's important to have someone to talk to within the crew and also to be friendly it's important that's a very important difference to the security security has to exude dominance they have to be fit physically to be able to defend themselves and take someone outside the awareness crew as the contrary approach the important thing with the awareness crew is that they are friendly that they're on the same level as the guests and not talking to them from from from a certain height as it were so that these people realised that they are being taken seriously and and recognised as a guest and be included and clothing is important here if I am at a Gothic festival and where don't wear the same kind of clothing then people might hesitate to talk to me because they don't regard me as a member of the group they might think that someone alien or from a stranger would come to them and same goes for other festivals on if if I go to a hippie festival I can wear the appropriate clothing or if I am at a punk festival I should always select the clothing that fits the the event and also I should meet them on the same level no hierarchy and also education is important should not be underestimated we have 50% medically trained people and 50% socially trained people and the other half perhaps are people that are interested in awareness and just in training regarding racism sexism queerphobia things like that these are very deep issues I was able to talk about them very briefly and then there is a very important first aid course that everyone has to to especially if it's about panic attacks overdose you have to be able to administer first aid so people are sent to various courses there's a lot of very important what the rules of the clubs is and how do you deal with someone who may be have overdosed what are the facilities in the club what is the point at which you should call an ambulance especially in clubbing this talk is very much focused on that this is not what perhaps what you would have at a concert but even with a concert it's very important to have workshops on alcohol perhaps and do I recognize some what's up with someone has some just had too much to drink or whether other drugs are involved and are they close to a coma and after all this training you have to perhaps you have to talk to each other in the in the awareness team what your triggers are I might be affected by sexism but also by racism so what triggers me what really causes me a problem which cases should you take over can you talk to the perpetrators one thing is to be able to help but also to talk to the perpetrators and again talk about this make arrangements and also this is important for a door crew find a safe word very important say there are no peanuts left in in the bar due to say to the other person and so that means that one person can go away do you want to check whether we have peanuts and maybe that is a way of getting the one of awareness to remember out of a difficult situation if you have that it works pretty well I have to speed up here not anymore not even more please as the interpreter so I have created a few example we have the emergency button this started at a certain punk location would you believe that and there is the emergency button and you might think that these buttons are being abused but if that gets the security out there every time people realize that it's not much fun also employees can use a button to make it known that people can talk to them about missing blue paper but also about conflicts and the last resort of course is switch on the light switch off the music there is not that is a thing in pubs as well with it there where there's not that much security and in every bar in every wardrobe there's a button that you can press to alert security and they didn't know where they have to go to okay I think that's it for me so how do we continue that would be something but kind of a relaxed talk we can't get onto that but we'll come to the Q&A now thank you for this important talk um I have to say that sadly there is not really much in terms of questions oh that's not affordable I can continue it would be nice if you might give us a few more examples yeah what else I want to talk about is a special thing we have a council and we are a park rather and we have trainings for people who then patrol the parks at night and those are just things that are beginning and you can see at my presentation I'm not as good not very good at making things pretty but yeah awareness work is a very emotional emotional work our crews are quite diverse and there are a lot of queer people and gay people because most people who want to do awareness are affected themselves but that also means that most people won't do it for longer than five years because yeah it can be heavy work especially if it's repeating cases where you think you should know better why do we have to start this topic again yeah it's a it's a long way ahead of us okay thank you very much another question so what could could be done for people with disablements like people with autism for example and this interpreter has signed issues I think there's a lag between all right it's a very good question they are beginning so there are parties without barriers especially with festivals and they check how can we include wheelchairs and so on the plan in our club is have parties without stroboscopic lights and invite people in wheelchairs and deaf people and autism is so diverse I think people have to test themselves test for themselves what they can do and people know themselves what they need and maybe they can just ask do you have strobe lights or do you maybe have headphones or ear protection so it's not too loud for me where could I go if it all gets too much do you have a quiet room so communication is critical in these cases so you just ask well this is what I need to be able to come to you can you provide that for me or not okay thank you very very much