Die Arche - Christian children and youth work

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Die Arche - Christian children and youth work
logo
legal form Registered association
founding 1995
founder Bernd Siggelkow
Seat Berlin
motto Make children strong
Action space Germany
sales 13,548,721 euros (2018)
Employees 192 (2019)
Website www.kinderprojekt-arche.de

The association Die Arche - Christliches Kinder- und Jugendwerk e. V. is an evangelical aid organization founded by Pastor Bernd Siggelkow in 1995 in Berlin-Hellersdorf , which is committed to combating child poverty in Germany. The Arche operates leisure facilities and school care for socially disadvantaged children in various German cities. With the aim of making children strong, the Arche organizes leisure activities and holiday camps, homework supervision and learning support. In this way, children are offered meaningful leisure opportunities who otherwise experience little social and cultural participation. The Arche provides children and families with material help in the form of free meals and clothing stores. As part of its school cooperation, the association enables children who come to school in the morning without breakfast to have breakfast free of charge. In addition, the Arche actively does parental work to support families in stressful living environments in coping with everyday life. The work of the ark is low-threshold. The association supplements offers in its leisure facilities with outreach youth work in the district and mobile family support.

History of origin

Siggelkow grew up without a mother in Hamburg-St. Pauli and came to the Christian faith as a 16-year-old through the Hamburg Salvation Army . After completing his commercial training, he studied theology at a theological seminary of the Salvation Army. After his ordination he first worked as a pastor in Lörrach. In 1990 he moved to Berlin to work in an Ev. Regional church community to work. In 1995 he started work in Berlin-Hellersdorf. Among other things, Siggelkow was repeatedly confronted with the social needs of many children there when he invited children with a team to weekly children's lessons. Through a variety of social and diaconal services and lobbying work against child poverty, which is often reported in the national press and on television, the Ark has made a name for itself nationwide within a few years. Siggelkow is the father of six children.

Religious orientation

The ark is one of the organizations associated with the Evangelical German Evangelical Alliance (DEA) and is a member of the Diakonisches Werk Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia.

Facilities

The Arche operates children's and youth recreational facilities as well as school care and in 2006 helped initiate the establishment of a Christian private school in Berlin-Hellersdorf. The first ark was opened in Switzerland in April 2009. Since 2014 there is also an ark in the Polish capital Warsaw. Another project is the Arche Children's Ranch in Gransee in Brandenburg - an educational experience location that enables (city) children to experience nature and interact with animals. In March 2018 a location was opened in Dresden.

Recreational facilities

The first of a total of five children's and youth recreational facilities in Berlin was opened in 1995 in Berlin-Hellersdorf . Further locations in Germany are Hamburg, Munich, Potsdam, Göttingen, Cologne, Meißen, Frankfurt, Leipzig and Düsseldorf as well as in Poland in Warsaw and in Switzerland in Ebnat-Kappel and Kreuzlingen.

School care

In addition to operating leisure facilities, the Arche also provides services in Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt a. M. (2 ×) at a total of four locations school care.

Private school

In August 2006, the Free Evangelical Schools Berlin e. V. established a primary school in Berlin-Hellersdorf in cooperation with the Arche. The first year of school began there with 14 children, and in the second year 22 children started school. By November 2009 the number of students increased to 82.

In addition to teachers, the sponsoring association also employs educators. After the end of the lesson there is after-school care. Graduated school fees are charged depending on the parents' income. In cases of hardship, a social fund takes over these costs from donations. The school is financed by funds from the Berlin Senate in the form of a partial cost subsidy, as well as school fees and donations.

In the meantime, 180 children from grades 1 to 6 attend the Arche elementary school at the new location at Lichtenhainer Straße 2. Since 2014 the school authority has been called Christburg Campus Berlin eV, and the school has been called Sabine Ball Elementary School since then.

Funding and sponsors

The financing is almost entirely through donations. In addition to private individuals, companies also support the project. The Buddy Bear campaign has been supporting Die Arche regularly since 2003. The TV presenter Günther Jauch bears the running costs of the Ark in Potsdam, which was founded on his initiative. Falko Götz , former coach of the Bundesliga soccer team Hertha BSC , became the first Arche ambassador in 2006 ; there is a collaboration with Hertha BSC. Other Arche ambassadors are the national soccer player Lukas Podolski , the television presenter Bettina Cramer , the music producer Dieter Falk , the actress Susan Sideropoulos , the TV comedian Mario Barth and the actor Erdogan Atalay . Nina Hagen is an ambassador for the Arche primary school. Wolfgang Thierse took over the patronage for the opening of the school.

transparency

In a study published by Phineo on behalf of Spiegel Online in November 2014 on the transparency of the effects of 50 donation organizations, the Arche only received 0.8 of the 5 possible points and thus the worst overall result.

The Arche has been part of the Transparent Civil Society initiative since 2015 . As part of this voluntary commitment, it has since made important basic information on structures and finances publicly available on its website.

Awards

The Arche and the founder have received various awards:

  • HanseMerkur recognition award for child protection 2002.
  • Carl von Ossietzky Medal of the International League for Human Rights 2005.
  • Siggelkow was awarded the TafelSpitze 2005 , endowed with € 5,000 . The Tafelspitze is awarded to “outstanding hosts” by the Treffpunkt Tisch , an umbrella association for the glass, porcelain, ceramics and cutlery industries.
  • In addition, Siggelkow received the Order of Merit of the State of Berlin in 2005 presented by the Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit. He also received the Berlin Bear Prize in 2008 .
  • Bernd Siggelkow received the Federal Cross of Merit (Order of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany) on April 22, 2008 for his work with socially disadvantaged children and their families.
  • In 2008 Siggelkow received the Kind Award 2008 in the national category for founding and working in the Arche von Kinderlachen .
  • Also in 2008 Arche was awarded the Hamburg Citizens' Prize of the CDU Hamburg.
  • Siggelkow was one of the ambassadors for the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010.

criticism

The PDS politician Petra Pau made positive comments about the Ark on her website, but initially agreed with her party to halve the city grants in 2005 (which was later withdrawn) and pointed out some controversial aspects of PR work in previous years. In her opinion, Siggelkow “marketed” Hellersdorf through his poorest children. However, she distanced herself clearly (“aloof”, “scandalous”) from the accusation of her then party comrade Martin Uther, expressed in 2005, that the Ark “missioned the children through the stomach” and Siggelkow came too close to the children physically, which led to party exclusion claims and libel lawsuits had led against this.

In Hamburg, some social welfare institutions and district groups criticized a poster campaign by the Arche and criticized the Arche's educational concept. The Arche's “aggressive media policy” would draw the quarters in which it was active into the negative reporting of the entire Federal Republic, which would increase rather than reduce the present problems due to the stigmatization thus triggered and thus make it more difficult to combat them.

In Cologne, an allegedly preferential treatment on the part of the city administration was criticized compared to existing social institutions.

Soundtrack

The official rap soundtrack for the five books of the Ark was released in 2008 with Germany's forgotten children , with exclusive songs by u. a. D-Flame , Kool Savas , Culcha Candela , Curse with Max Herre , Colos , Joe Rilla , Frauenarzt , Jonesmann , Morlockk Dilemma , FR , Taichi , Alpa Gun , Franky Kubrick and many others.

In November 2012 the album Giraffenaffen was released for the benefit of the Arche, on which Mono & Nikitaman , Lena Meyer-Landrut , Roger Cicero , Max Mutzke , Thomas D & Roman Lob , The BossHoss , Culcha Candela , Annett Louisan , Ulla Meinecke , Flo Mega, among others and Götz Alsmann have re-recorded children's songs.

In October 2013 the album Giraffenaffen 2 was released , on which Cassandra Steen , Heinz Rudolf Kunze , Johannes Oerding , Max Raabe , Andreas Bourani and Wolfgang Haffner can be heard. Part of the proceeds will go to the ark.

literature

  • Klaus Schmals et al .: An ark for the poor children of Hellersdorf. Study by the Free University of Berlin , Berlin 2007 (PDF; 4.7 MB) .
  • Bernd Siggelkow, Wolfgang Büscher: Germany's forgotten children. Hope stories from the ark. Gerth Medien, Aßlar 2007, ISBN 978-3-86591-187-2 .
  • Bernd Siggelkow, Wolfgang Büscher, Marcus Mockler: Papa Bernd. Arche founder Bernd Siggelkow - A life for the forgotten children. Adeo, Aßlar 2010, ISBN 978-3-942208-18-5 .
  • Helmut Kuhn: The children of the ark. In: poor, rich - and nothing in between? Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-404-60612-2 , pp. 91-118.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Official website of the European Commission / Pastor Bernd Siggelkow
  2. ↑ Offers on the website of Die Arche Christl. Kinder- und Jugendwerk eV Accessed on November 12, 2015.
  3. ↑ Interview with Bernd Siggelkow ( PDF )
  4. ↑ Frauke Hunfeld: "Let the children come to me" ( Memento of the original dated December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Stern magazine , issue 16/2005, April 22, 2005. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stern.de
  5. ^ Website of the DEA. ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Works associated with the Evangelical Alliance. Retrieved February 11, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ead.de
  6. ^ Diakonie Portal. Retrieved June 19, 2015.
  7. ^ Website of Die Arche Christl. Kinder- und Jugendwerk eV ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 29, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kinderprojekt-arche.eu
  8. ^ Dresden: Children's and youth organization “Arche” opens new location , idea.de, message from March 1, 2018.
  9. ^ "Arche-Schule" starts operations Die Welt. Retrieved June 19, 2015.
  10. ↑ Nicola Klusemann: Potsdams Arche is starting. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 10, 2008, accessed September 24, 2012.
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Thierse takes over patronage . Website of the Free Evangelical Schools Berlin, 2011. ( Memento from August 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Effect transparency in donation organizations . Phineo gAG, Berlin 2014, p. 3 and p. 33 (PDF; 3.0 MB).
  13. ^ Website of Die Arche Christl. Kinder- und Jugendwerk eV information on transparency. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
  14. ↑ Interview with Arche founder Bernd Siggelkow
  15. ↑ European Year: Against Poverty and Social Exclusion . The federal government. February 25, 2010. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  16. ^ Statement by Petra Pau on the Arche , December 15, 2005.
  17. ↑ [1] , December 15, 2005, accessed October 14, 2016
  18. ↑ Insa Gall, Solvej Krause: What is social? In: Die Welt , December 13, 2006. Cf. Insa Gall's comment: Comment: The success of others . Ibid.
  19. ↑ Youth Welfare Committee criticizes Stadt und Arche . ( Memento from October 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Köln Nachrichten, online news magazine for Cologne , February 26, 2008.
  20. ↑ CD "Giraffe Monkeys" - a bestseller from Hamburg for the benefit of the Arche . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , October 18, 2013, accessed on May 13, 2014.