Pilot project "International Youth Club Stetten a.k.M.    

Report by Gerd Feuerstein.

Stetten a.k.M. (gfe) Increasing refugee flows and migration also pose challenges for the Stetten school centre. In order to better integrate children and young people who are assigned to the school and neither speak nor understand German, the school social work initiated the pilot project "International Youth Club Stetten a.k.M." some time ago. At the last meeting of the municipal council, school social worker Tobias Buck and his colleague Leonhard Löffler presented the project to the council.

The idea was born at the beginning of November last year, when the first war refugees from Ukraine were assigned to the school centre, Toby Buck reported: "What can we offer the kids and young people to counteract the shock and traumatisation and to accompany them," they asked themselves, as well as how to deal with the respective school classes. Together with the teachers, the basis for the new project was laid, which the prospective school social worker Leonhard Löffler then made the subject of his Bachelor's thesis and which is now being practised with great success at the Stetten school centre. The aim of the project is to integrate affected children and young people into school life "and into the community in the long term", Löffler explained. The aim is to build a bridge from integration to inclusion, which means that not only the pupils have to adapt to the school system, but also the school has to adjust to teaching young people without language skills.

In concrete terms, the linguistic competences of students at the school centre, who grew up bilingual and can thus often help the newcomers, are used on a voluntary basis: "Through joint projects, sponsorships and the creation of a permanent support system, we try to create a pleasant everyday atmosphere," reported Löffler. Through social-space-oriented community work, the initiative tries to make it possible to connect to municipal services, for which cooperation with associations and organisations is sought: "This also includes, for example, teachers, parents and the entire school centre, including school social work," said Löffler.

Currently, there are more than 30 pupils with little or no knowledge of German at the school centre for whom a new admission procedure has been developed with the involvement of the school social work. The aim is to circumvent language barriers through analogue and digital means. The kids are provided with a so-called starter package, which includes an information folder and an iPad. Currently, the International Youth Club has 24 volunteers who speak a wide range of languages, from Italian, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, African, English, Turkish, Hungarian, Albanian and Croatian to Serbian, Bosnian, French and Bulgarian.

Moreover, the homepage of the school centre is now multilingual, which is still a rarity in the district, said Löffler, who received much praise for his idea and its implementation from all sides of the committee. "This is really a great project," all sides agreed: "Language is the key to success," said the head of the municipality, pleased about the initiative, with which integration can succeed in small steps.

Funding of the project

As school social worker Tobias Buck explained when asked by the committee, the iPads were provided by the school. The small meetings and activities have also been financed from the school's budget so far. Additional funds could be made available for corresponding activities such as a joint climbing excursion or similar, for which the head of the municipality promised corresponding support.