YOUNG PEOPLE remember international: exchanges

A project must involve partners from at least two and no more than four countries. One of the partners must be from Germany.

Applications can be submitted by organizations from the following countries: all EU/EEA countries, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania and Israel as well as organizations from Belarus with exile structures in the EU/EEA countries.

Organizations from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan can take part in a project as cooperation partners. 

The application is submitted formally by one of the partners involved but should be drawn up jointly by all partners. However, only one application can and should be submitted per partnership. Non-profit institutions, corporations and legal entities engaged in school-based or non-formal educational work from Germany, Europe and Israel are eligible to apply (see above).

No, only the institution submitting the application is required to submit documents testifying to their non-profit status.

Yes, we welcome organizations that have relevant subject-matter expertise and wish to carry out an international project for the first time. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions; we will be happy to help.

In-person encounters and activities can take place in the countries in which applicants and the cooperation partners  are based. There must be a clear connection with local historical sites of National Socialist persecution and extermination. When choosing a location for the encounter, please follow the current safety guidelines issued by the German Federal Foreign Office or your country’s embassy in Germany.

The exchange(s) must last at least four days. Travel to and from the location counts as half a day. Each project must include at least one in-person international exchange. Two exchanges (e.g., in the form of a reciprocal visit) are encouraged.

The duration of digital, hybrid or in-person activities for subgroups may be shorter or longer than the main exchange. For example, Partner A might meet with a subgroup in their own country to prepare, while Partner B meets with the small country group in their own country to prepare.

Please take note of the educational standards that apply to international exchange programs when developing your project. There should be enough time for content-based activities, preparation, follow-up, reflection and for participants to get to know one another in person. 

Yes, each exchange program should have at least twelve participants in total. However, all projects should follow the educational standards that commonly apply in international encounters and aim for a balanced representation of participants from different countries.

Participants in international encounters should be aged between 18 and 35. Please define an appropriate age range for your project’s target group so that you can design pedagogically appropriate topics, content, methods and activities. If you intend to include participants with a wide age range in your project, please explain and justify this.

We define young professionals as young people who are just starting out in their careers. Whether in vocational training, at school or university, or already at work, this target group is very important to us since previous initiatives focusing on historical-political education have not addressed and/or reached it sufficiently. We are particularly keen for our funding to reach young people without an academic background.

Yes, of course. All young people aged between 18 and 35 are welcome to take part in the exchange projects!

Each project must include an in-person encounter on an international scale. 

Projects can take place in person or in hybrid form, but fully digital formats should only be implemented in response to unforeseen crises. Projects may combine in-person, hybrid and digital elements, for example for the preparation of participants or for in-depth work on the subject matter on site. This makes it possible to devote the entire project period to subject-specific work and cross-border exchange.

We strongly encourage you to incorporate digital or hybrid elements into your project in addition to in-person meetings, such as digital (small-group) work or online workshops between in-person meetings. Partner organizations may also carry out individual activities or meetings related to the joint project theme locally—that is, within their own country—and then engage with partners in a digital space to discuss and collaborate on the project.

Digital: All participant encounters and activities—both international and in the same country—take place in a virtual environment. 

Hybrid: Some activities take place in a digital environment while others are held in person. It is also possible for some participants to attend in person and others to join virtually while the event is live. 

In person: All activities and encounters take place in person on site

If restrictions prevent your encounter from taking place, please contact your designated EVZ Foundation representative as soon as possible to discuss whether the encounter should be postponed or converted to a digital or hybrid format.

Historical sites of National Socialist persecution and extermination include former concentration and extermination camps, transit, deportation, forced labor and POW camps, execution or extermination sites, prisons, cemeteries, former Jewish ghettos etc. Many historical sites now house memorials or museums. However, there are also places whose histories have barely been researched and are therefore largely undocumented and unexplored. The program also supports engagement with sites like these, for example as part of a local history project. 

Projects involving international encounters offer young people opportunities both for knowledge acquisition and for personal growth, enabling them to strengthen their social and intercultural skills. Opportunities to actively shape the project allow participants to experience creativity, to feel that they are taken seriously as agents of change and to see that they can overcome new challenges. This boosts their confidence in their own ability to take action.

Projects are funded in accordance with the principle of deficit funding. This means that the EVZ Foundation covers expenditures that the participating organizations  cannot cover from their own or third-party funds. The collaboration between the project partners should also be reflected in the cost and financing plan.

Applicants may include their own and/or additional third-party funds; potential sources should be investigated in advance. 

Program costs, travel costs and related expenses, fees, personnel expenditures and costs associated with the preservation and dissemination of results are all eligible for funding. Administrative expenses (overheads) can only be funded pro rata based on actual expenditures documented with individual receipts.

The allocation of costs to specific fiscal years is an extremely important part of your planning since the granted amount allocated for a given year cannot be carried over to another year. If you have allocated funds for 2026, these cannot be carried forward to 2027 and will therefore no longer be available for this project. Therefore, you must enter the costs for each year separately in the cost and financing plan. We also have a regulation stating that at least 20 percent of the requested grant must be utilized during the fiscal year 2026. You can allocate more than that amount in 2026, but not less.

Yes, personnel expenditures incurred when realizing the project (preparation, implementation, follow-up) can be funded. The requested amounts should be proportionate to the material costs and based on customary local wages. Please be sure to observe the prohibition on preferential treatment when calculating wages.

Please provide the basis for calculation of each cost item (job description and any required qualifications) in order to give us an accurate understanding of how your personnel expenditures were calculated. Information about personnel expenditures and fees should also include the total number of hours per week/month.

The same applies to all other individually calculated cost items, such as accommodation costs, food costs, travel expenses etc.

You will find more information in the FAQ on the cost and financing plan.

Applying organizations can only submit one project application each. However, the same organization can act as a cooperation partner in a different project consortium and thus be involved in multiple projects.

Yes. You are welcome to take part in another call for applications.

During the digital application consultation sessions, we will address any content-specific questions we have received to date. We will also provide a brief explanation of the cost and financing plan. There will be ample time for your questions in particular. You are welcome to register and come prepared with your questions!

Yes, this is possible. Organizations already receiving funding from the EVZ Foundation are also eligible for other funding. However, please ensure that the subject matter and administration of each project is kept strictly separate.

Feel free to contact us by email with your request—we will work with you to find a solution.