Meet Philipp: our intern turned CUBE data extraordinaire!

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The CUBE team is made up of passionate individuals, each with their own unique journey and interests that has led them to joining CUBE!

We would like to put a spotlight on those who make the work of CUBE possible. So this month we would like to introduce you to Philipp! Our intern turned CUBE data extraordinaire. He tells us what it’s like to volunteer for CUBE, his interest in east central Europe and why he believes young people should be taken seriously.

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Where are you based:

I live right now in Leipzig, Germany

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Best thing about being part of the CUBE-Team:

I really like the idea behind CUBE: to engage young people to take part in political participation and hopefully wake the idea in young people to make a change. Especially with the focus on non-discriminatory and non-hierarchical measures.

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A lot happens behind the scenes to achieve all the projects of CUBE, can you give us a little insight into your activities at CUBE:

I mostly worked on our “data” from our project with the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Bayern. I created surveys and questionnaires for the workshops we held. Afterwards all data were compiled and I analysed them with SPSS. The findings from this process are one of the cornerstones of our reports.

Beside that i did smaller jobs concerning the data aspect of our projects, but i also took part in some of the workshops.

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Why is the work of CUBE important to you:

I realised during the workshops in schools that young people are often disconnected from the political life and discussions of the society. This impression was later reinforced by the findings from our surveys. At this point I realised how important the mission of CUBE is: Increase participation of young people. Especially when you later have the privilege to go to a university, one can easily forget that participation or at least the possibility for it it’s not a natural thing. And that’s why the work of CUBE is that important for me, to take part in an organisation which tackles this problem.

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We would love to hear about your journey that led to you being apart of CUBE today:

The story is rather boring 😉 In September 2018 I needed a long term internship for my university degree and I wanted to do something Europe related. A friend, who worked at this time together with CUBE in the Social Impact Lab Leipzig, told me about the project and I applied. Until today i don’t really know when the internship stopped and when I started being part of CUBE 😉

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What do you do when your not working for CUBE:

I recently finish my Master program in European Integration in East Central Europe. As the name of my Master program kind of suggests, I’m very interested in East central Europe, especially Hungary. My thesis specifically was entitled “Nationalism in Hungary” in Budapest. The last semester was for sure quite stressful, therefore I take some time now to “recover” and slowly start to search for orientation and also begin with the application for jobs.

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What’s the main thing you would like to see change or improve in political participation:

Seeing political institutions like the European Union, being re-modeled by the needs and desires of young people. Young people must be taken seriously: they must be educated, not just to find their place in the economic life, but also to understand and take part in political life. I think that’s not just a way towards a better democracy, but also to be able to tackle the current problems like the global, social and ecological change; ethnic crisis and an increasing inequality.

Young people don’t have to just understand that they play a big role in the future of this planet and its societies. Even more they have to get the possibilities, even if this means a transfer of political and economic power from the older generations and elites towards a multitude of young people.

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Interested in joining as part of the CUBE Team? as a volunteer? or intern?

If you have a couple of hours a week and want to gain experiences in a grass-roots NGO with flat hierarchies and a critical view on society, get in touch with Lisa: l.hermanns@cubeyourtake.eu

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