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EStER - Empowerment Project for Students Experiencing Racism - summer term 2025

The EStER program aims to strengthen networking opportunities, visibility and empowerment for BIPoC students. The collective term BIPoC stands for Black, Indigenous and Person of Color. The use of the term aims to indicate the shared identity and solidarity between people who are affected by racism, structural inequalities and discrimination. The EStER program opens the space with various offers to talk about these tangible injustices and at the same time create a place of recovery for BIPoC students. We are aware that even spaces like EStER are not free from power relations that go hand in hand with the reproduction of intersectional discrimination. We aim to include the perspectives and voices of queer*, dis_abled* and BIPoC with refugee stories* more strongly.

A power-critical perspective can help us to take better care of each other and treat each other with more responsibility.

The program is free of charge!

Our goal is to create a safer space where we can address our desires, concerns and challenges in everyday university life without being judged. Your life realities and experiences are in focus, so you don't need any special prior knowledge.

Empowerment from an anti-racist perspective means that we question power structures and discrimination mechanisms, reflect on them and deconstruct them together.

EStER consists of several building blocks - Empowerment Workshop, Regulars' Table, Discourse and Community. The framework program consisting of an empowerment workshop, regular get-togethers, a scientific discussion on the topics of racism and decolonial critique (discourse) and events such as cultural evenings or picnics (community) will be organized by us in consultation with all participants. How many events you come to is of course up to you!

*Queer does not function as a concept of identity in queer theory, but refers, among other things, to practices and social positions that question  heterosexual norms (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung).
*Dis_abled* (with underline) refers to being dis_abled by social barriers (Lummerding & Wiedmann, 2022, p.9).
*The term escape refers to the evasion of violence, which is mostly exercised or threatened for political, ethno-national, racist, gender-specific or religious reasons (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung).

Program during the summer term 2025

• Inhalt ausklappen Inhalt einklappen BIPoC* Roundtable

  Our project EStER offers a regular roundtable. On some days during the semester we meet from 16:00-18:00 and eat, chat and laugh together. The dates for the summer term 2025 are: 07.05.25/04.06.25/02.07.25

  Location: Queeres Zentrum Marburg, Liebigstraße 14, 35037 Marburg 

  The location is designed to be accessible with few barriers. The premises are located on the first floor and can be accessed via an elevator. There is a ramp for wheelchair users to accommodate the steps at the building’s entrance.

  Registration is not necessary, just come by!

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at any time at empowerment@uni-marburg.de. We are also very happy to receive comments, feedback or ideas for further projects!