Category: Opinion

One of our most dedicated volunteers, Kurtis DeLozier, writes about how he sees the impact of his identity on his volunteer work.

Until now, immigration policy in Germany has followed a pathway defined by residency, employment, and citizenship restrictions. Put another way, policy has been concerned with 3 primary questions: Who is allowed to stay, who is allowed to work, and who is, ultimately, allowed to participate fully in the political process of the Federal Republic.

If you’ve been holding off registering your address at the Bürgeramtafter hearing about the difficulty of securing an appointment or long waiting times, this week is an excellent time to get the job done.

When Berliners voted to protect Tempelhofer Feld as a public park in 2014, it was seen as a key success for direct democracy.

Dear all who offer your time and skills to do volunteer work within the refugee community,

Middle class and low-income white men are suffering from “broken hearts”, Bill Clinton told a crowd of Hillary Clinton supporters this month.

In the interest of reducing food waste, a Berlin initiative is connecting a system of publicly accessible fridges where people can safely drop off their leftovers in order to feed more hungry mouths.

According to a recent UNICEF report children now make up more than half of the world’s refugee population.

“Punctual. Exact. Productive. Closed off. Careful. Inflexible. Humorless.” And some “Goethe” and “Einstein” thrown in for good measure.

I spent last Wednesday serving lunch to refugees with the volunteer group Moabit Hilft. The unmistakable sound of chanting protestors boomed towards us from the main street while my friend Lisa and I carted our tray of minestrone soups and schrippen around the park.

I’ve never quite understood the human reaction to crises. I often wonder what makes one tragedy more appalling to people than another.

In Berlin they are especially visible on the U-Bahn. They wait for the subway doors to close before they address the car with a rehearsed speech: “Excuse the interruption, I am one of Berlin's annoying homeless people...”.