RespAct! Children stand up for their communities.

Thanks to your generous support, especially during last Christmas Holidays, we can keep growing! Growing means reaching more and more schools and children with our project. We currently run the RespAct project  in three German cities Berlin, Munich and Hamburg and neughbouring towns. We work with the most vulnerable children and youth from socially disadventaged families. We'd like to start intensivelly work with young refugees that come to Germany and start their new lifes in German schools. They have to learn new culture and language, but they also need to cope with their hard experiences in the past and overcome the psychological problems. 

In January 2015 we started the cooperation with the vocational school in Starnberg in Bayern that started this year two classes for refugees in the aged 16-23. Young people from coming from different countries and different cultures enjoyed the project that let them strenghten their sense of togetherness, responsibility for the environment and the importance of respect towards the peers. 

Since the project got a great reception under young people, RespAct Project will be continued in the vocational school. Thank you for your support!

An article about the Project in Starnberg in the Süddeutsche Zeitung you can find here:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/starnberg/asylbewerber-wo-fluechtlinge-aufbluehen-1.2332687

All the best

RespAct Team

Links:

• Article about RespAct in Starnberg. (Sueddeutsche Zeitung)
• New Website of the RespAct Project

We are very happy to share with you impressions from the RespAct Summit in Neukölln. Participants of the RespAct project weeks - pupils from Berlin's primary and secondary schools gathered togther with representatives of schools, town hall, police, city cleaning service (BSR) and youth organizations for the RespAct Summit to discuss great ideas to improve the local neighborhood in Berlin Neukölln.

For couple weeks children from Berlin's primary schools and one secondary school in Berlin Neukölln developed during project weeks ideas to improve their local neighborhood. In the framework of the program "Children get involved in their neighborhood" of Local Action Area North Neukölln and neighborhood management "Schillerpromenade" primary and secondary school children took part in RespAct project weeks, where they learned self-defence skills and talked about their neighbourhood. During the mayor game children took on the role of the local mayor and convinced others to take action and improve their local environment. In the end of the week children presented their ideas in front of their parents and teachers.

On 10 October took place the RespAct summit at the Richard Primary School in Berlin young and adult participants discussed childrens' ideas and the opportunites for implementation. During the RespAct Summit pupils discussed implementation of concrete actions with decision makers and representatives of the Town Hall, Police, city cleaning service (BSR) and youth organizations. We'd like to present to you the most popular topics of the summit. In these areas children and adults were looking for concrete solutions which should be implemented over the succeeding months:

- Donation campaigns for homeless people

- City pollution and clean-up actions

- Safety on the streets and in parks in Neukölln (more lights)

- Beautifying the environment (playgrounds, graffiti walls, etc.)

- More green areas and plants

- Politness in dealing with other people and actions to alert others

We are exited about the outcomes of the planned actions and will be very happy to share with you latest news about the implementation of childrens' ideas. Thus we will report on the results of the summit, new playgrounds, clean-up actions and donation campaigns... we will keep you updated!

Our team works everyday to foster community engagement among children and improve their quality of life. Thank you for supporting our work. 

Links:

• RespAct Summit Berlin Naukolln