universal language foundation gGmbH
We live in a time in which much happens simultaneously: upheavals, isolation, radicalisation, but also new chances for cooperation, responsibility and future. The Universal Language Foundation wishes to contribute to ensuring that change does not lead to disintegration, but rather to an awakening.
We believe in language as the prerequisite for cohesion. In culture as a bridge. In education as a protective space.
Our non-profit society promotes the dialogue between generations, world views and life realities. With formats that listen, connect and invite.
What we do
We create spaces in which questions are allowed.
We design formats that do not preach but instead search.
We promote projects that provide a sense of purpose – with local roots and open to the world.
Our mission is to strengthen the quiet, sustaining forces of a democratic society:
– through intercultural education,
– through artistic impulses,
– through conversations at eye level,
– through international programmes that connect people.
We do not build buildings. We build trust.
What we believe in
We see how societies are dividing.
We see how the ostensible middle is remaining silent and disappearing as a result.
However, we also see how many people are longing for encounter, dialogue, clarity and decency.
We do not dream of the great salvation through ideology.
We believe in the small agreement that leads to reconciliation. Again and again.
In structures that are not immediately visible but are stable.
In foundations that bear up, even when the visible changes.
We believe that the future cannot be talked into existence.
However, that it can be positively shaped when we come to an understanding in the spirit of reason and humanity.
Why we do what we do
We come from various cultural contexts.
We have lived and worked in various countries.
We are familiar with the foreign – and with home. We love both.
We are joined by the conviction that an open society is more than a political system of order:
It is a daily decision.
It begins in conversation.
And it needs spaces in which people can and wish to encounter one another in their differences.
We wish to contribute to this as entrepreneurs, as citizens, as part of this society.
Quietly, but decisively.
Why Düsseldorf?
We start here because we live here and because thus city connects what is today often divided: origin and future, world and neighbourhood, economy and culture.
Düsseldorf is not simply a location for us. It is a starting point.
Why “Foundation”?
The term Foundation stands for what we do:
We establish foundations. Not complete answers, but instead viable structures. No programme from above, but instead a space that grows when people enter it.
We are working on something bigger than ourselves.
Not out of touch with reality, but instead grounded.
Not loud, but clear.
Not perfect, but honest.
Not systemic, but instead human.