Big changes start small

DW Akademie aims at strengthening freedom of expression and at enabling people around the world to make free decisions based on independent information, reliable facts, and constructive dialogue. This is particularly important in an age when quality media is increasingly being questioned.

To achieve its goals, DW Akademie specifically collaborates with people and organizations making a difference, sometimes in small steps, sometimes in large ones. Together with local partners, DW Akademie finds individual, innovative, forward-looking, and long-term solutions. This work includes improving political and legal framework conditions, advising government agencies and NGOs, promoting the development of sustainable business models and technical innovations, or supporting press and media organizations.

DW Akademie’s projects benefit disadvantaged young people, refugees, indigenous minorities, journalists, or the management of large media companies. 

The pdf-version of 'Big changes start small' is available in English and German. Please download below!

But are these projects having an impact? Who are the people promoting them? What do the people in the individual countries gain? 

This collection of online portraits takes a hard look at these questions. It presents journalistic reports on some of our worldwide projects and describes the effects of our engagement.

On our website, you can learn about Radio Sónica in Guatemala, a station that uses a mobile radio studio to reach young people in poor neighborhoods and give them and their concerns a voice. You can meet the founders of an environmental whistleblower platform in Tunisia. And you can read about trauma centers in Pakistan that have been set up to help media workers traumatized by terror, violence, and stress get their lives back under control. 

The articles you find in the dossier feature the varied experiences of people who are trying to tackle major challenges through small steps. Join them on their quests to achieve great changes.