swartzberg, campigns, healing, coaching, terry, gmbh, workshops, journalist, munich, holocaust

Campaigns for a better world:

Stop the Black Tide of oil pollution!

Commenced on: September 1, 2017

Objectives: Save the world’s water from the “Black Tide” of oil tide. Save the world’s climate from oil and other fossil fuels. Stop the destruction of societies and environments in Africa by greedy companies.

Putting an end to one of the world’s great “environmental and human rights disasters” by stopping oil companies’ contamination of the environment – in 100 countries. 100 million victims.

Oil: the great climate, society and environment-killer.

Among them: South Sudan, in which millions are suffering from the poisoning of their water and land – and thus health and lives.

A contamination causing death, deformities and illnesses of victims, and the pollution of the Nile, Sudd wetlands and other bodies of water.

Client: Hoffnungszeichen Sign of Hope e.V.

Accomplishments:

Through individual, on-site initiatives, advocacy and networking, mobilized the people of South Sudan who live in and around the oil fields to investigate and report on the destruction of their environment and other crimes against humanity
Created forsouthsudan.com – a portal giving the South Sudanese a voice and a link to the world
Created WeAreWitness, the collective of front-line journalists, activists and concerned citizens in South Sudan. WeAreWitness’ reports are posted on forsouthsudan.com
Created “Black Tide” – the song that has become the anthem for the world’s fight to stop the Black Tide. Check out the versions from South Sudan, Nigeria and Berlin – with a worldwide version to come!
Caused South Sudan’s government to commit itself to ending oil pollution in South Sudan – by launching a countrywide assessment of health and society
Facilitated reporting by TheSentry, The Guardian, Al Jazeera the New York Times, Bloomberg, Reuters and other major media on environmental, societal and political misdeeds by oil companies and the government in South Sudan
Facilitated fact-gathering and reporting by the UN’s Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, pollution.org and other leading international bodies

Commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust – through the Stolpersteine

Commenced on: May 2011

Objectives: To make the entire world aware of and participating in the Stolpersteine – the international project of Holocaust commemoration. There are 75,000 of these sidewalk-embedded plaques.

Created and pursued by Gunter Demnig – one of the greats of our generation – and found in 1,600 cities in 26 countries, these “stumbling blocks” are placed by 1,600 local-based organizations for Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals and other victims of the Nazis. These figures make the Stolpersteine the largest, most democratic and most inclusive project of commemoration that the world has ever seen.

Accomplishments:

Caused the world’s leading media to regularly and intensively report on the Stolpersteine, with this including the New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Financial Times, Haaretz, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung
Creating huge and powerful social media communities (100,000 on change.org; large and active ones on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter)
Going on and organizing highly successful lecture tours in Israel, the USA and Europe
Enlisting statements on behalf of the Stolpersteine from Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Frank Walter Steinmeier, Claude Lanzmann, Herta Müller and other leading political, cultural and religious figures
Positioning the Stolpersteine as the bulwark against a rising tide of racism and right-wing extremism

Serving as head of Munich chapter of the Stolpersteine, and facilitating the placement of more than 100 Stolpersteine in Munich.

Kippa experiment

Commenced on: December 1, 2012

Objectives: By wearing a kippa in public in Germany – and all throughout Europe – to show my fellow Jews that they are safe and appreciated in Germany, to promote understanding among religions

Accomplishments:

Terry Swartzberg: honored by the Government of Germany for civil courage (incorporation of kippa into permanent collection of the Museum of German History in Bonn), Germany-wide highly positive media coverage and speaking engagements; publication of book “With Chutzpah and Kippah”
Creation of “Munich kippa” – now found in the collections of the Jewish Museum Berlin, Jewish Museum Munich, and the Museum of Germany History in Bonn

J.E.W.S. – Jews Engaged With Society

Commenced on: November 1, 2017

Objectives: to create a platform and stage events that hearten Jews in Europe, and that mobilize interest in and support of Judaism.

Accomplishment: emergence of J.E.W.S. as an independent and influential voice for a proactive Judaism in Germany and in Europe as a whole

Saving the climate

Commenced on: 1994

Clients and accomplishments:

United Nations Climate Secretariat (UNFCCC) – created and help implement a stakeholders communication concept, attended two COPs
European Union – helped organize and moderated two conferences of environmental communicators
Germany’s ministry of the environment – created and wrote “Common Ground”, official magazine on the protection of the environment in Germany, and other brochures

Current thrust: #Bike5 campaign for climate-friendly mobility in our cities