Participate

If you are between 16 and 26 years, you can apply. Unfortunately, interested teenagers who only turn 16 during the youth meeting aren’t able to take part for legal reasons.

Previous knowledge is not necessarily required, but we do encourage you to read up a little on the subject. That way you’ll be able to engage more actively in the program and especially the discussions.

Adequate language skills in English (Minimum B1) are essential for partaking in IYM Dachau so you can all interact with each other. Please note, that the whole program takes place in English!

During IYM Dachau we have workshops, guided tours, eyewitness talks, excursions and movie screenings and fun time acitivities like karaoke, pub quiz, Bavarian dance night or our IYM festival with a stage program by our participants. You’ll find the last schedule here: https://www.iym-dachau.com/#downloads. Additionally, you can get impressions from our previous youth meetings on our website: https://www.iym-dachau.com/insights or on our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iym_dachau_team/#.

IYM Dachau takes place at the Max Mannheimer Haus, which holds a youth hostel and one of our partner organizations, the Max Mannheimer Study Center.

https://www.jugendherberge.de/en/youth-hostels/dachau/

Participants share four-bedrooms divided by gender. We mix the rooms with participants from four different countries each, but we make sure the age distribution is similar in each room. Teamers, project management and some of the guests during IYM also stay at the hostel for the whole time.

During the two weeks of IYM Dachau it is not allowed to skip the obligatory program which includes meal times. You can do private trips before or after the youth meeting or you can use the spare time slots in the program which are highligted in bright green in our schedule.

Should you have any special needs, please contact anja.schuller-mueller@kjr-dachau.de, so we can figure out all options together.

Participants under 18 are under the supervision of the team of IYM Dachau. They also must abide to German Youth law. In order for you to take part we need your legal guardian’s signature. You can download the form within the application form. Please print it out, have it completed and signed by your parents. After you have scanned it in PDF format, please upload it during the online application. You find further information in our Handout German Youth Law here: https://www.iym-dachau.com/#downloads.

Your motivational letter is important for you and for us. Answering our questions helps you to check if the topics of our program really suit you. For us it is important to make sure, that you are comfortable dealing with topics like National Socialism or the history of the concentration camps for two weeks and that you are open to meet people from the whole world. Your letter also to helps us shaping the program according to the overall interests and preknowledge of all participants. Therefore, it is really important that you write your motivational letter as concrete and personal as possible. If it’s just some AI-generated general application, we can’t accept you as a participant.

After sending your application form you’ll get an automatic response. Within a few days you get your confirmation of application by the project management. If your motivational letter is too general without concrete and personal examples, you’ll get some follow-up questions, so please don’t use AI. After you paid your fee, you’ll receive your official confirmation of participation. Please do not send us any payment receipts, you’ll get a reply after the fee has been credited on our account. If you need a visa, you’ll receive the respective letters for your and the embassy by e-mail. Additionally, we’ll send the visa letter to the embassy by mail.

You are required to transfer their fee prior to IYM Dachau within four weeks after you got the confirmation of application, where you can find all the payment details. Please always remember to write you full name under ‚subject‘. If the transaction fee is exceptionally high, please contact our office.

Every year, we offer an early bird option, you’ll find the exact prices and conditions here: https://www.iym-dachau.com/participate. In general, we can’t grant individual participants a reduction. However, we have financial sponsors who support travel expenses of participants from some non-European countries. If you are interested in that, please contact anja.schuller-mueller@kjr-dachau.de.

Additionally, we have the Max Mannheimer Scholarship which includes travel expenses and the participation fee, but we can only offer it to one or two people each year and depending on our fundings. For more information read https://www.iym-dachau.com/scholarship.

You can only pay the participation fee via bank transfer. Due to data privacy regulations, we can’t offer other options like PayPal. It is not possible to pay the fee in cash after your arrival in Dachau. In the past, too many participants didn’t bring enough money or no money at all, which is why we cancelled that option.

First, you must send all necessary information asked in the application form. After we receive the payment of your participation fee, we’ll send you the visa letters for you and the respective embassy via e-mail. Additionally, the letter for the embassy will be send to them via mail. With these letters you must register at the embassy to make an appointment. Please make sure to get an appointment as soon as possible, because the whole process sometimes takes longer than expected.

You have to notify Anja Schuller-Müller via anja.schuller-mueller@kjr-dachau.de that you want to declare your withdrawal. Conditions on refunds of your participation fee are stated on your application form. For IYM Dachau 2026 it is free of charge to cancel before June 30th, after July 1st, the fees will be retained in case of cancellation.

The most promising way to get hold of us is by sending us an e-mail. We are working part time. Therefore, the IYM office is neither occupied all day long nor every day of the week. Usually, our project manager Anja Schuller-Müller works from Monday to Wednesday. So don’t worry, should it take some days to get a reply to your email.

Anja: anja.schuller-mueller@kjr-dachau.de
Karla: karla.steeb@kjr-dachau.de