Mentoring for refugee children
Wir Gestalten e.V.
- Kids & Teenagers
- Migrants & Refugees
- Education & Language Support
- Mentoring, Sponsoring & Career Coaching
- Sports & Leisure Activities
About the volunteering opportunity
WIR GESTALTEN e.V. arranges sponsorships for children and young people with refugee experience and a migration background.
Sponsors support children in arriving in Germany, in developing individual interests, in learning the German language and give them a feeling of being welcome. The children are usually between six and fourteen years old, sometimes older, and usually live with their parents in Wedding or neighbouring districts. By regularly spending your free time together, you both gain insights into other cultural habits and ways of life. Good support for our godparents is very important to us: a social worker is available for support. In addition, we offer a compulsory introductory event, regular thematic volunteer training with external experts and a relaxed get-together at volunteer evenings.
Our association has been a well-known neighbourhood meeting place for people of different origins for over 10 years. In the Kiezcafé on Wednesday afternoons children can try out the indoor climbing tower, do handicrafts, homework, play football or table tennis. The mothers exchange ideas over coffee and interpret during the sponsorship process. Through joint discussions, we can arrange sponsorships according to need.
Your Tasks
Being a "Kiezpat*in" means that you reliably meet with your godchild once a week for two to three hours and spend your free time together, doing homework, playing, doing sports or exploring Berlin. It all depends on your mutual interests! These meetings should take place regularly and be possible for at least half a year, because it takes time to build up trust!
What's needed
You should definitely be reliable, because it is very important that you are in regular contact with the child, the family and us as coordinators. You should be creative and have your own ideas about what you could do together. Although you should encourage the child to develop his or her own ideas, it will help to get to know each other better if you can make some suggestions.
We ask you to keep an activity diary with the child during the mentoring program and to answer a few questions about the progress of your mentoring every now and then. This is important for our project reporting and for further quality development.
Most parents would like volunteers who speak very good German, as their children often have problems at school.
For all questions and difficulties you can contact us. We are here to accompany your mentoring program!
Time required
Important notice
All volunteers in Berlin need an extended police clearance certificate. We will organize this for you. For this, you should bring your ID to the get-to-know-you meeting.
Where?
Wir Gestalten e.V.
WIR GESTALTEN e.V. arranges mentoring for refugee children and children with migration background. For this purpose, we are looking for volunteers who have fun spending time with a child, learning about other cultures and habits. We offer an interesting training programme.
The "Kiezcafé", is a well-known meeting place for families with migrant background and volunteers in the neighbourhood since 2006. Every Wednesday afternoon mothers have coffee together and help with translation during the arrangement of our mentorings. Their children do their homework, climb, play football, table-tennis or do hanicrafts.