4 June 2026, 4:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Grief needs a place

Overview

A laboratory about collective grief, broken promises and what lies beneath the anger

Anyone who works in civil society is used to projects coming to an end. The third sector is familiar with uncertainty, time limits and upheaval. However, what is currently happening has a different quality: structures that have grown over the years are to be dismantled. Work that protected and strengthened people is losing its foundation. What seemed secure has begun to totter.

That makes you angry. And that's a good thing. Anger mobilises, it warms, it connects, it makes us loud, it drives us to find new ways.

AND Underneath the anger there is usually something else, something quieter: the grief over a loss that we cannot yet properly put into words; the grief over a promise that has been broken, the grief over a future that we have fought for and built on. There is rarely room for all of this in everyday project work. The next proposal is waiting, the next meeting, the next idea.

In this SOCIUS lab, we want to create precisely this space and pause together.

We do not assume that grief has to be processed in order to leave it behind. We believe that it needs to be integrated - that it needs a place, attention, community, acceptance. Grief belongs to us. Even the collective one.

Our questions for this lab: How can we integrate what lies behind the anger into our everyday lives in such a way that it does not weaken us in the long term - but sustains us? And how do we create spaces for collective grief that strengthen rather than paralyse?

We don't come with ready-made answers. We put these questions in the centre - and explore them together. We have a few ideas and approaches that we are happy to place in the centre.

For whom?

This lab is aimed at people who are themselves affected by cutbacks and the dismantling of civil society structures - whether they are in the middle of it or already through it. And to counsellors, facilitators and companions who want to shape or design such processes with others. No prior knowledge is required - just a willingness to pause for thought.

When?

Thursday, 4 June 2026, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
SOCIUS, Tempelhofer Ufer 21, 10963 Berlin

How much?

It is important to us that our labs are accessible to everyone, and at the same time, it is important to us that the lab instructors receive appropriate remuneration. SOCIUS does not earn any money from the labs. Your contribution goes directly to the instructors.

We ask for a contribution of your choice between €20.00 and €150.00.

The service is exempt from VAT pursuant to Section 4 No. 22 a).

Your contribution (€)

Clear

What are you taking with you?

Space for what would otherwise not find a place

Experience of collective witness and shared grief

Impulses and methods for your own work with groups in loss and transition

Connecting with people who have similar questions

hosts

Nathalie Rajević

Nathalie is an educational scientist and has been dedicated to strengthening civic engagement in its various facets for over ten years. Since 2020, she has also been supporting the work of organisations and teams as a trainer, process facilitator and coach.

The question of how we as a society deal with ongoing crises, collective losses and far-reaching changes has been with Nathalie for a long time. The pandemic, climate crisis and increasing social polarisation in particular have repeatedly made her aware of how little space there is to process these events. But a society that represses grief also loses its ability to remember and shape the future together.

Nicola Kriesel

Nicola is a process facilitator and organisational consultant at SOCIUS. She completed her training as a grief counsellor in 2023/24. She has lived experience: with grief, with the body as a place of loss, and with what people and groups need to find ground again. Loss does not stop at work either, which is why teams need spaces in which grief can be visible - and in which they are not left alone. She is convinced that grief - when it is recognised and held - allows people to mature and grow.

With this SOCIUS lab, she wants to open up another topic: collective mourning in organisations: What happens in organisations and in civil society when projects die, structures break away, promises are broken?

Any questions?

Then write to us

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