Don Bosco Catholic youth welfare
The Don Bosco Kath. Jugendhilfe in Osnabrück is a Catholic youth welfare organization in the legal form of a corporation under public law . Its sponsor is the Episcopal See of the Diocese of Osnabrück . The corporation is a member of the German Caritas Association .
Task and activities
The Don Bosco Kath. Jugendhilfe has been offering outpatient and (partially) inpatient help for children, adolescents, young adults and families in stressful life situations for over 100 years. The main task consists in the accommodation, care and upbringing of disadvantaged children and young people who are at risk in their development. It is named after Johannes Bosco , the patron saint of youth, and was founded in 1957. It goes back to the St. Johann children's home founded in 1726, the oldest still existing children's home in the Osnabrück diocese . Over the years, the forms of care have changed several times in response to the social emergencies of the respective epochs. The orphanage was transformed from an infant and children's home to a facility for children and adolescents who receive inpatient and outpatient care as part of youth welfare.
The Don Bosco Catholic youth welfare service is not connected to the Salesians of Don Bosco .
St. Johann children's home
Formation and foundations
The St. Johann facility is the oldest still existing children's home in the Osnabrück diocese, the opening of which dates back to 1726. The institution was founded by Anna Maria Steffen, who had inherited a large fortune and, with 4,000 Reichstalers, founded a foundation which, in the form of a charitable institution , was supposed to offer orphans "a home and a good Catholic education" .
At that time there were already a few poor houses in Osnabrück for the homeless, destitute or sick, but no orphanage. In the Neustadt district of Osnabrück, the parish of St. Johann was responsible for the poor and the dispossessed. On July 17, 1722, the founder turned to the responsible chapter of the monastery with a petition . The chancellery Johann Anton von Geistkoffler zu Gailenbach († 1723) was enthusiastic about the orphanage idea and therefore changed his will by using the orphanage as an inheritance. This became known and led to a willingness to donate.
The parish of St. Johann collected large donations and the Stiftskapitular zur Mühlen made a larger grant. The Lutheran prince-bishop Ernst August II of Hanover also gave 200 thalers and the Benedictine monastery in Minden donated 1,500 Reichstaler. With the provost (cathedral chapter) Hugo Adam von Korff, who was also responsible for the cathedral chapter , negotiations on the foundation contract could only be concluded on November 7, 1724 after two years and four months. Ultimately, the site of the dilapidated and no longer managed Propsteihof next to the Johanniskirche was decided as suitable as the building site and the foundation contract provided for a small lease of land. The orphanage should fall to the episcopal see in the event of closure . In May 1725 a single-storey building next to the Johanniskirche began and on October 18, 1726 the house was ready to move into.
However, the curia took action and, against the will of the founder, integrated a girls' school , "especially since the school maids could then supervise the orphans". In the first years, however, only three to five "Catholic girls" were housed in the home and orphan parents were also taken in as so-called foster parents (foster parents) to look after the children and all had to work in the home's agriculture. Due to the staff in the house and agriculture as well as the students and teachers, who all lived in the property, there was soon little space left for orphans. From 1730 boys were also admitted to the home. In 1732, the Catholic Prince-Bishop Clemens August I of Bavaria decreed that all newly hired officials in the Osnabrück Monastery had to give 50 percent of their first annual salary to the St. Johann orphanage. This ordinance was in effect until his death in 1761, so that the institution received considerable donations as a result. Georg Ulrich Klecker bequeathed 3,000 Reichstaler to the Anna Maria Steffen Foundation and thus, from 1740, an additional 12 children could be admitted who no longer necessarily had to be orphans. Sick children or children from impoverished families have also lived in the home since then. The children had to leave the house at the age of 12 and were placed as apprentices or housemaids.
The founder Anna Maria Steffen died on November 9th, 1743 and was buried in the church of the Natrup monastery. In memory of her and her first name, Saint Anne is depicted above the main entrance of the facility to this day .
In 1744, the "Krimpenfosten Foundation" including lands, forests and capital , which Vogt Franz Christian Krimpfort had founded in Dissen , was transferred to the orphanage foundation. With these funds it was possible to build on and the girls' school got its own housing complex. This created space for additional children and made it possible to purchase cattle and employ additional servants and maids. The foster parents now received a salary in addition to board and lodging. In 1745 there were 21 children and in 1768 there were 30 children in the house, 15 of them boys.
In 1785, the Stiftskapitel, as the foundation board, leased the orphanage and the associated parts to the orphan parents Brunemann, who from then on received a certain amount of money for each orphan they cared for. As a result, only orphans were accepted into the house again. Therefore, from 1788, 39 children in need were cared for outside of the home; in 1795 the number had risen to 120 children. In the same year, the chairman of the foundation and priest Karl von Vogelius, who bequeathed his fortune of 36,000 Reichstaler to the orphanage, died.
Help from nuns
In the course of secularization , the foundation contract was canceled in 1802 and the orphanage was placed under the government in Hanover. On October 15, 1851, the Sisters of Mercy of the Barromä Order from Nancy and Trier took over the facility. The home was raised by two floors, and a sewing school was set up in 1853. The sisters were the children home one despite the ban pediatric nursing send and medical care - so successful that their addition in 1859 in St. Mary's Hospital , the gelagene next to the orphanage rebuilt deanery , handed over to the line. Due to a confrontation between the Prussian state and the Catholic Church , the so-called May Laws were passed in 1875 , according to which all orders or congregations similar to orders were banned, apart from those that were dedicated to nursing the sick.
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The Franciscan Sisters , who through M. Anselma Bopp († 1887) had only founded their religious order in Thuine in 1869 , were, in contrast to the refusal of the Barromä sisters, ready to take off their religious costume when working outside the monastery and were therefore able to do so on May 2, 1878 take over the St. Johann orphanage with 50 children. Financial resources were meager and a host bakery was also set up in the orphanage. The number of orphans increased steadily. Therefore, in 1906, the agricultural building was torn down and the home was expanded with an extension, in which, following the approval of the government on June 26, 1909, a “child care facility” (kindergarten) was set up.
From 1917 onwards, the number of children to be cared for increased again because of the First World War . Around 100 children could be accommodated in the town hall, which is directly adjacent to the orphanage and partly owned by the bishop. The old orphanage was rebuilt for small children and from 1926 an infant station was set up. In 1927 the two buildings housed 221 children, 26 of whom were deaf. Three years later, a state-recognized nursing school for babies was integrated into the orphanage.
Than in the Second World War to air strikes came just toddlers and infants were in Ostercappeln housed with the family Berghegger and in catering lamp, was ordered state until the spring of 1943 that all children evacuated had to be. The around 70 children from the town hall were accommodated in the Thuine mother house, the small children and infants in Bad Iburg in the Schloßblick house, which the Bergschneider family made available. Some of the supervisors and student nurses were accommodated in the neighborhood. The town hall was completely destroyed by bombs on September 13, 1944 and the orphanage on March 25, 1945.
After the war, the reconstruction of the St. Johann orphanage made slow progress. A barrack was built on the courtyard side , where about 30 small children could find space. In 1950 around 100 small children and 40 infants lived in very cramped conditions on the property. In 1952 a newly built third floor was added, so that in 1953 a total of 130 children could be accommodated, around 70 percent of whom were born out of wedlock. The multi-storey farm building was completed in 1955, where a laundry room and staff rooms were located.
Accommodation at Gut Leye
In 1946 the 70 children, housed for three years in the monastery of the Thuiner Franciscan Sisters, moved to the baroque manor Gut Leye , which the bishopric leased from the Diocese of Osnabrück up to and including 1960. The property had been confiscated after the Second World War in 1945 by supply troops of the British military, who released it again in 1946, severely damaged. The Ostman von der Leye family who owned it had moved to the forester's house, where they stayed until 1956.
Sometimes more than 70 children were accommodated on the estate, which with its four bedrooms was quickly overcrowded. Sometimes up to 40 small children had to sleep together in the large upper dormitory. There were no wardrobes for personal use. In the mornings the nuns laid out the clothes for each child on a wide long table in front of the large windows and assigned them. There were three rooms in the main building where the different age groups could eat and hang out together. The school-age children of the first three grades were taught together in the eastern outbuilding of the estate; the other years had to walk about 3.5 km to Osnabrück- Eversburg to the Liebfrauen school.
The cramped conditions made the construction of a new children's home more and more urgent.
Don Bosco Children's Home
On January 6, 1957, the foundation stone for the new Don Bosco children's home was laid at Osnabrück Moorlandstrasse 50, which was inaugurated on October 27, 1957 by Bishop Helmut Hermann Wittler . Now there was a division in the two homes between infants and toddlers in St. Johann and children or young people in Don Bosco.
The various residential buildings in the complex had two floors and could accommodate up to 20 children on each floor. There were two groups of girls and four groups of boys, which were divided into age groups. Each group had two bedrooms, a small and a large lounge, a small tea kitchen with storage room, a small cloakroom and shoe room and a washroom with shower and toilet. The two bedrooms had up to ten beds with a small wardrobe next to the bed. An outside staircase led down from the groups on the upper floors.
On the property there was also a large and a smaller farm building as well as a soccer field and lots of playground equipment. There was also a small chapel in the main house, where a service with altar servers was held every day .
Up to 120 children were accepted into the home. The Thuiner religious had forbidden the use of violence and beatings on the children in the Don Bosco children's home. The school-age children visited, among other things, the school of the Heilig-Geist community in the Dodesheide district . At the age of 16, after leaving school, the young people were placed with a teacher, with whom they concluded an apprenticeship.
St. Johann Disabled Aid
The St. Johann children's home on Johannisstrasse has been undergoing further changes since 2002. The area of child and youth welfare is gradually being dissolved due to the socio-political requirements, while the area of handicapped assistance offers a growing number of housing options in which children and young people with an intellectual disability or multiple disabilities, as part of integration assistance, also with the most severe disabilities (and corresponding secondary diseases with high need for care). The facility has 52 inpatient places for children and young people, 40 of which are offered in the area of assistance for the disabled. There are currently 12 places available for the child and youth welfare sector. Children are accepted without any age limit.
Don Bosco Catholic youth welfare
On September 23, 1997 the 40th anniversary of the children's home was celebrated, which was no longer called Don Bosco Children's Home, but Don Bosco Kath. Jugendhilfe and housed 106 children and young people. The much smaller residential groups, for which single and double rooms were also available for retreat, now received as individual and differentiated care as possible from more pedagogically trained staff. Since a return to normal family life was always the priority, up to 15 apartments were rented outside the main building in 1997, in which assisted living arrangements were offered.
The institution's working basis is Christian values and a Christian image of man, connected with Tolzeranz to other religions and world views, as well as a systemic view that includes family and social environment. Among other things, various forms of residential groups are offered, such as girls', youth and outdoor living groups, assisted living, day groups and transitional care , taking into care groups and placement of on-call families, clearing as well as video-supported parental work and other outpatient educational aids.
For the 50th anniversary of Don Bosco Osnabrück , a large summer party took place on June 17, 2007 with the participation of Bishop Franz-Josef Bode and the then Prime Minister Christian Wulff as well as other guests from politics and business. On April 26, 2008, around 250 former children were celebrated.
While in 2007 it was still assumed that the facility was founded in 1957, ten years later, based on historical sources, it was found that the facility can look back on fifty more years of existence, so that the Don Bosco Catholic youth welfare service in the summer of 2017 was able to celebrate a big anniversary celebration for the 100th anniversary.
literature
- Bernd Holtmann: 250 years in the service of children. St. Johann children's home, 1976.
Web links
Sources and individual references
- ↑ a b c website of Don Bosco Kath. Jugendhilfe, Osnabrück
- ↑ a b c Holtmann 1976, p. 12
- ↑ a b c d Holtmann 1976, p. 9
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, p. 6
- ↑ a b Holtmann 1976, p. 10
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, p. 9f
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, p. 11f
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, p. 13
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, p. 14 ff
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, pp. 13-20
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, pp. 20-22
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, p. 23f
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, pp. 24-26
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, pp. 24-30, 32
- ↑ Holtmann 1976, p. 30
- ↑ St. Johann Disabled Aid website
- ↑ Osnabrück Sunday Gazette of June 17, 2007
Coordinates: 52 ° 17 ′ 30.8 ″ N , 8 ° 3 ′ 7 ″ E