Our Community

Liz Ricks-Aherne volunteered full-time for GSBTB Open Art Shelter during the year she lived in Berlin. Before she left at the end of the summer, Open Art Shelter intern Madeline McKay sat down with her to talk about how her experiences in Berlin will inform her life and work back in the US.

Eli Waël Khleifawi is our very own Project Coordinator at GSBTB who is originally from Damascus, Syria and arrived to Germany in 2015. We talk to Waël about his interests in business, his home city and how it compares to Berlin and what integration means to him.

Ben R. Osborn and Rachel are the pioneers of one of the Open Music School's projects - the weekly Open Music Lab -which takes place every Monday at Refugio Café. United by a passion for music, their goal is to share their musical knowledge with different communities.

Annick Repellin-Holzgreve is a long-serving GSBTB Open Art Shelter volunteer and long-time resident in Germany, originally from France.

Madeline McKay is GSBTB's summer intern. Coming all the way from Philadelphia, USA, she is currently studying Women, Gender Studies and Art at Bates College.

GSBTB Communications Intern Abeera Atif is originally from Pakistan. Hailing from Lahore, she came to Germany in 2013 to pursue higher education in the city of Bremen, where she was first introduced to the complexities of welcoming newcomers.

Orla Gill is a volunteer at GSBTB's partner organisation Dynamis, an organisation supporting people living with disabilities. Orla tells us how her experience volunteering has given her a broader perspective on life in Berlin and helped to improve her German skills.

An interview with Dr Anne Seebach, co-founder of #BIKEYGEES, where GSBTB volunteers are supporting newcomer women to explore the city by bicycle.

Early in 2015 we had just started organising our monthly Team Ups and at one of our first ones, two curious and energetic Syrian men turned up. "We want to do something! We want to get involved! Volunteer, work, anything!" they said. Talal had only arrived in Germany two weeks earlier.

Photographer Olga Baczynska has been covering GSBTB events, large and small, for the past couple of years. When she's not got her camera in hand, you'll probably find her at Clärchens Ballhaus dancing the Balboa!

Amer Khlil is a regular at our weekly Sprachcafé, where our community gathers to practice their German skills. Amer has written this moving story about his journey from Syria to Germany, in German, after just a year of living in Germany.

An interview with Aziz from GSBTB Open Music School band Wulaba - Refugees voice.