Graffiti project against racism turns electricity boxes into ambassadors

Under the two mottos "Stop racism" and "Grey becomes colorful", a graffiti campaign was implemented in the "BackUp" project of the youth education center of the city of Offenbach. Together with young adults and the artist Derya Yüksel, Nicole Förster, case manager in the BackUp project, collected ideas for a graphic representation on the topic of "Stop racism". Derya Yüksel created an initial sketch and worked on it with the young people. The next step was to spray paint two electricity boxes at Domstraße 58 to send a message against racism.

With this campaign, "BackUp" took part in the annual theme "Beware of Racism" of the Children and Youth Work Department of the Offenbach Youth Welfare Office. Participants were given a space to talk about the topic of racism and exchange ideas. During the discussions, it became clear that every young person with a migration background who took part had already experienced racism. Mayor and Head of Youth Affairs Sabine Groß emphasized: "Dealing with the topic of racism is important, as the young people's accounts show. Offenbach is a city with a particularly young population and many people with a history of immigration. I am delighted that young people, who are the future of our city, have implemented this project and I would like to thank everyone involved. The jointly developed image clearly shows that all people should have equal rights and that differences such as skin color, nationality or ethnicity should not play a role. I would also like to thank Deutsche Telekom for offering the opportunity to paint electricity boxes after prior inspection under the motto 'From grey to colorful'."