German Children and Youth Foundation A multilingual speech competition for high school students that promotes the diversity of language and culture

The German Children and Youth Foundation (DKJS) prioritises education and participation for young people. With each of its projects, the foundation aims to contribute to a future worth living and a good upbringing for children and young people. To this end, spaces are created in which their strengths are discovered and strengthened. For the new DKJS project - ‘More languages - more WE’ - which recognises the multilingualism of young people, wegewerk conceived and implemented the corporate design and the portal. We also provided extensive support in the social media implementation of the project.

The ‘Mehr Sprachen - mehr WIR’ competition offers multilingual pupils the opportunity to showcase their language skills and be recognised for them. The focus is on showing multilingualism as an asset and promoting a diversity of culture and language.

Participating pupils can give a multilingual presentation on one of several given topics and record it as a video. The presentation should be given in German and another native or second language. The presentations are submitted online to the competition by their teacher to be assessed by a jury. The students who make it through the first round will then receive online coaching to help them develop their public speaking skills before submitting another video for the second round. Those who make it through again can take part in the final in Berlin in May 2025, where the best speakers will be honoured.

The competition is open to students of all school types from the 7th grade up to the age of 25 who speak German and another language well enough to be able to give a free speech in both languages. wegewerk was commissioned as a full-service agency for the project. We were responsible for the project platform, including design, concept and technical realisation. We were also responsible for developing the corporate design (logo, design elements and templates) based on the DKJS design, as well as the conception and editorial support of the Instagram channel.

The target group of the website, which was realised with the CMS ww-edit, are primarily teachers who should motivate their pupils to take part in the competition. The logo and design elements should work well both online and offline. Due to the participation of minors in the competition, the website also had particularly high data protection requirements. Different access portals with varying access rights were created, which are divided into areas for teachers, the DKJS and the jury. This allows the DKJS to manage the videos, while the jury can use a rating system in their area to categorise the videos.

We have given the website a lively appearance with dynamic icons, animations and different focus points. Features also include voice bands and buttons that animate with the scrolling and hovering of the cursor. The colourful website thus does justice to its different target groups and motivates participation with its appreciative and encouraging tone.