Cultural education for children and young people should encompass more than just taking them to age-appropriate plays. With this in mind, the Thalia Theatre Halle has been developing a contemporary format for addressing its young audience for years. Support by the Deutsche Bank Foundation now enables a long-term focus for this commitment: Since 2007, "Format – Neue Wege in der Kultur" has been searching for new formats between play and reality.  Fellows are given the opportunity to earn experience in a specific artistic process with young people. Children and young people in Halle are given many changes to get creative themselves and realise their own ideas.

In the 2008/09 period, 6 fellows won over the jury for their project concepts in the areas of theatre, music, performance and installation on the subject of German reunification. Tina Hilbert's inter-disciplinary project "Hüben & Drüben" (Here and There), for instance, involves sending her participants on a journey of urban discovery. Young people from the boroughs of Halle and Halle Neustadt (East German territory until 1990) explore their city with a focus on the events that resulted in reunification and record their discoveries in an interactive map. Their results will also be presented at special congresses, in radio broadcasts and in the internet. The project aims to track down the differences, disparities and commonalities of both boroughs. The young people are given an opportunity to be creative, realise their own ideas and explore how their day-to-day lives have been characterised by German unification.

The scholarship is aimed at young university graduates from the areas of architecture, theatre/media education, cultural studies, media science, pedagogics, the humanities, social science, and the fine arts. Potential foundationers had to submit an original idea and design for a youth cultural education project, including a cost estimate, in Halle. They realise their project ideas in a professional atmosphere and with the support of the Thalia Theatre, and external mentors also accompany their work. As such, they have the chance to establish contacts with numerous experts and specialists, as well as each other.

"The Deutsche Bank Foundation has supported cultural education projects for many years, such as the school collaboration competition KIDS TO OLYMPUS! and the Deutsche Bank Foundation Youth Art Prize", says Tessen von Heydebreck, member of the Deutsche Bank Foundation's board. "When children and young people express themselves creatively and artistically, they have important experiences that expand their horizons and build personality. And we adults benefit from these projects as well: we gain important insights as to how young people see our society and which desires, fears and hopes they have. I'm sure the foundationers will get valuable impetus in Halle for their further work."