The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is committed to instigating, promoting and supporting political education. Its primary task is to offer people the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and abilities that enable them to participate in the search for alternatives to the status quo. It encourages people to get involved in politics and provides them with resources to do so more effectively. To this end the Foundation plans and organises opportunities for political learning that offer interested parties the chance to experience growing competence and confidence in their personal relationship to politics. It focuses on providing hand tools for political activities as well as improving methodological and didactic qualifications; this approach includes translating latest research results in the social sciences into educational offers of practical relevance. On another level, the Foundation arranges and provides counselling in adult political education processes directed at professional and volunteer mediators of education in and outside of schools. It also provides relevant literature and other types of support for events organised by third parties.
In little over a decade the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation has become a forum for debate on many current topics of local and global relevance: right-wing extremism, contemporary history, critique of capitalism, local German politics, sustainability and the theme of social justice. It organises conferences, seminars, workshops and debates on all these subjects.
Since January 1999, the Foundation has offered courses in the field of political management. The training programmes are directed at parliamentarians, executives and staff of socio-political organisations. They focus on creativity, rhetoric, conversational skills, social competence, public relations and utilisation of electronic media. Due to the positive response and ensuing high demand, this programme has become a permanent part of the Foundation's agenda and been fine-tuned to the needs of these target groups.
For years the Foundation has been active in political youth education. In October 2002 a Germany-wide network of umbrella organisations, initiatives and individual protagonists was formally set up to facilitate exchange and cooperation.
The Foundation organizes or supports ca. 2.000 educational events per year with a total of roughly 50,000 participants in all the federal states of Germany.
The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation has become a venue for critical analysis and programmatic discussion of contemporary democratic socialism, a socialist think-tank for developing political alternatives. It provides a forum for dialogue between left-wing socialist forces, social movements and organisations, left-wing intellectuals and NGOs. The programmes are conducted in cooperation with universities, women's associations, agricultural associations, youth and senior citizens' groups, labour councils in the public as well as the private sector, members of local government, development policy groups and press associations.
And, last but not least, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is an invaluable resource for knowledge about and analysis of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
