This year's annual conference of the National Agency Education for Europe at BIBB took place on September 27 and 28. Anne Unfried and Melanie Peters from the European Vocational Training Centre were also invited to attend. The venue was the former royal seat of Weimar, which is characterized both by culture (including Goethe, Schiller and Bach) and history, as the National Assembly in Weimar proclaimed the Republic in 1919. In addition, the National Socialist era and especially the Buchenwald concentration camp later left their inhuman traces there. Weimar was therefore an appropriate place to hold a conference on the Erasmus+ program, which aims to bring people and cultures together and break down prejudices.

The opening of the annual conference was dedicated to the 35th anniversary of Erasmus+ and the awarding of the European Teaching Award and was accompanied by keynotes from Klaus Fahle, Managing Director of the NA at BIBB as well as Armin Reinartz, Head of the European and International Cooperation Department at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The subsequent "Inclusion and Diversity" forum was first devoted to the concept of inclusion and presented the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, before addressing the questions of how society can become more inclusive and how inclusion measures can be better implemented.

What storytelling is and what strategy can be used to tell a good "story" was explained to us in the workshop "Tell your Story" by the NA Internet editorial team at BIBB. After the theoretical part (which topic, which core message, which target group, which format), we looked at some practical examples and learned on which European channels and in which campaigns we can spread our projects. In the subsequent workshop "Creating Impact" we went into more detail about dissemination tools, a targeted communication strategy, communication channels and copyrights.

In our free time, of course, we didn't miss the chance to follow in Goethe's and Schiller's footsteps a bit and took a look at some of the sights in Weimar, including Goethe's home, and the many literary quotes all over the walls of the houses.