The Neukölln Model
Why Neukölln? Berlin-Neukölln is home to people from 160 different nations. Immigration and changing economic structures have led to a concentration of socially disadvantaged households in northern Neukölln. Lack of school and vocational qualifications, high unemployment and crime have shaped Neukölln’s image as a social hotspot in and beyond Berlin. But “talking down” the situation is no solution.
The Stiftung Zukunft Berlin is committed to bringing about positive changes: special problems also offer special opportunities. Our job, as we see it, is to make Neukölln a model for problem-solving that is also of interest to other Berlin districts and municipalities across Germany – hence the name Neukölln Model. Where there’s much to be done, much can be achieved.
Using the Campus Rütli to Change the City
To improve the situation in Neukölln, the Stiftung Zukunft Berlin is making education its point of departure. An important project here is the setting up of the Campus Rütli – CR², which was initiated in 2007 by the Stiftung Zukunft Berlin in cooperation with the Neukölln District Authority. The aim of the project is to bring lasting change to the area around the Rütli School by integrating the whole range of education and social welfare services. This involves adopting new strategies: in future, children and young adults will be offered support and advice from their very first steps until they have completed their vocational training. The Campus Rütli will in future include a day-care centre, a primary school, secondary schools, learning workshops, a youth club, play, sport and leisure facilities as well as counselling services for schoolchildren and parents, children and youth health services, an adult education centre and a music school. The idea is to offer children, young people and their families a new living environment integrating all the district’s resources and skills.
The Stiftung Zukunft Berlin provides operational support for project management: it coordinates the work of Christina Rau, project patron and Deputy Chair of the Foundation Council. It also provides the project management with assistance in various areas, in particular with Campus Rütli – CR²’s twice-yearly regulatory roundtable.
The Stiftung Zukunft Berlin funds or contributes to individual projects. Funding provided by founder Dieter Rosenkranz enabled a number of projects to be realized in 2008: a study trip for Campus Rütli teachers, educators and parent representatives to Groningen (Netherlands), short-term school scholarships to the USA, a workshop for school newspaper editors from Berlin and Ankara (organized by the Ludwig-Wolker-Haus Catholic Youth Centre in Berlin) and the refurbishment of a learning workshop and the provision of instruments.
Cooperation and Networking
The Stiftung Zukunft Berlin is helping to network with other players. For example, it has succeeded in recruiting the utility company Vattenfall, the Roland Berger Foundation, the Telekom Foundation and the Heinz and Heide Dürr Foundation.
Cooperation projects with foundations, associations, companies and other educational institutions allow targeted funding measures that extend the range of training options. These include courses leading to the secondary school-leaving certificate (Freudenberg Foundation), vocational orientation courses (Schildkröte e.V.) and language promotion (Mercator Foundation) as well as projects like “Football Meets Culture” (S. Fischer Foundation), “Early Excellence” (Heinz and Heide Dürr Foundation) and “eXplorarium” (Life e.V.). Building on existing cooperation with the health insurer AOK, the Child and Health Services are preparing a course on Nutrition/Exercise.
Series of Discussions on Education and the Future
The Stiftung is seeking to raise the public profile of the Neukölln Model by conducting a variety of activities and events. Cooperation between the Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, the Freudenberg Foundation and the Regional Centre for Education, Integration and Democracy (RAA Berlin) in the Campus Rütli project has, for example, provided impetus for the Future of Education discussion series. The latter’s aim is to provide a public forum for discussing problems – and potential solutions – relating to the current education situation of children and young people in Berlin. Its cooperation partner is the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin.
Education and the Future: Who Do Schools Belong To? (10 January 2010): An increasing number of schools are adopting new strategies by working together with volunteers, foundations or business enterprises in order to raise their profile. The discussion revealed what internal changes schools and administrative agencies must make in order to show sponsors that their support is welcome. What also became clear is that schools need a development partnership open to pupils, parents, teachers and third parties. The discussants were: Norbert Bisky (painter and guest professor at the Haute École d’Art et de Design, Geneva), Dr. Helga Breuninger (Chair of the Breuninger Foundation and the Bürgerstiftung (Citizens’ Foundation), Stuttgart), Özcan Mutlu (Spokesperson on Education Policy of Alliance 90/The Greens in Berlin’s House of Representatives and founding member of the German-Turkish Europe School’s Booster Association) and Sascha Wenzel (teacher and head of the RAA project One Square Kilometre of Education).
Education and the Future: Creating a Public Platform (15 November 2009): How do we talk about education? What role does education play in the media and what is the impact of such public debates? The discussants included Werner Sonne (ARD’s Berlin Studio), Dr. Johannes Bohnen (political and communication consultant) and other guests.
Education and the Future: Integration Through Education (13 July 2009): The question of why children and young people from less educated backgrounds fail at a personal level, at school and in society was discussed by Dr. Ahmad Al-Sadi (Intercultural Moderator at the Campus Rütli in Neukölln), Professor Wolfgang Edelstein (former Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development), Safyah Hassan (student), Karla Werkentin (former Education Councillor of Schöneberg District) and the artists Eva Hertzsch and Adam Page. The event kicked off with the premiere of Tabea Sternberg’s film “Die Chefs von morgen … das sind wir!” (Tomorrow’s bosses … that’s us!), in which young people from Neukölln talk about their wishes for the future and about life in their part of the city.
