Neukoelln: Issues of Outreach to Berlin's Immigrant Poulation

Wednesday, November 11th

Today we visited Neukoelln, an area of Berlin generally known for its dense immigrant population. We met at the offices of the Neukoelln Citizen Foundation, an organization which provides programs and services to immigrant families in the Neukoelln area. One of these programs was similar to the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization in the U.S. This program provided mentors to local immigrant children, helping them to integrate into the German culture and educational system. This mentor program focused on the use of extracurricular activities to improve performance in school. The current German education system disadvantages immigrant children for whom German is not a first language, resulting in a relatively low graduation rate for immigrant children. Mentor programs like those provided by the Neukoelln Citizen Foundation are important in providing assistance to this demographic that immigrant families are unable to themselves. The second program was the Neukoelln Mother’s program, which educates local mothers about local programs and institutions which can provide aid for immigrant families, and in turn these women to educate other mothers and families about these resources. This is an extremely important outreach service because many immigrant families are either afraid (due to their illegal status) or unable (due to language barriers) to access these programs and institutions themselves. Neukoelln Mothers are able to gain access to families too afraid to come directly to the Neukoelln Citizen Foundation, or other organizations for help. Several issues cause major problems for the Neukoelln Citizen Foundation in implementing these programs. The first and most important issue is funding. Berlin is a very poor city, and while authorities recognize the importance of such programs, convincing them to provide funding is a challenge. The women involved in the Neukoelln Mothers program are paid for their important work, but local government places requirements upon the program in order to justify funding; i.e. the requirement that Mothers must visit 2 families a month, which many are unable to do. Secondly, as mentioned above, illegal immigrant families are fearful of government aided institutions such as the Neukoelln Citizen Foundation because they believe involvement in their programs put their immigration status at risk. This requires the Neukoelln Mothers program to make only indirect contact with immigrant families, and the program must rely entirely on the honor system, hoping that Mothers are being effective and truly doing their job in the community. Overall, the work of the Neukoelln Citizen Foundation is very important, but a lack of funding and the reluctance of fearful immigrant families to seek help create major obstacles for the well-meaning organization.