Cultural Diversity

The city profits from a broadly diversified cultural landscape. Dresden sees itself as an intercultural city and encourages an exchange across borders. The cultural dialogue and mutual understanding are strengthened in this way as is the integration of immigrants.

Diverse, cosmopolitan cultural offerings are an important factor in the quality of life and attraction of a city. The Dresden city administration’s cultural development plan contains different points dealing with the cultural integration of immigrants. The Dresden city administration is involved in the development of interculturalism in different ways. The Office for Culture and Monument Preservation supports various associations and initiatives of immigrants. Once a year, delegates for Integration and Foreign Residents, the Ausländerrat Dresden and many participants host the “Intercultural Days” all around the city. They offer a glimpse into the life of people of different origins and encourage group activities. There are about 60 to 70 events that anyone can attended.

Dresden now has 13 different partner cities in Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Different school, college, music, film, and dance projects and professional events advance this exchange.

The municipal libraries support the acquisition of language, the use of language, and facilitate participation. Many immigrants use the services of the libraries. In addition to the municipal libraries, there are also research libraries, which are visited especially often by immigrants.

The municipal libraries are motivating children to read with the project “Lesestark.” Children who attend a daycare or a grade school regularly use the program.

By 2020, the Dresden city administration should take the following steps:

• Better inform and include immigrants in cultural offerings

• Maintain the offerings in the municipal libraries for language assistance and better support for multilingualism in children