Berlin - Think of the kids

October 2015

Hi! We are Jennifer, Tamar, Johan and Rushil, and this is our blogspot about our Project Week in Berlin, in a refugee camp, taking care of kids. 

We  splitted our team in two: Rushil and Tamar, and Jennifer and Johan, and we had two shifts:  the first from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, and the second from 2:00 pm to 9:00 pm (which were attended respectively).



Every single day we used to do different things with the kids, but playing with the rope was their favorite activity, apart from the fact that was the most energy-requiring activity and after playing with it, all the kids were tired and more calm. It also worked for teaching them the numbers, counting in german while each kid was jumping.. We also made some drawings with them, played football and made masks for them to use. Our main role in that refugee camp was taking care of the kids, prevent that the kids didn’t fight with each other, and keep them busy.

On the other hand, we also spent some time with adults, who knew a bit of english and made communication easier. They used to play table tennis, play guitar, and also they used to play music to dance. They were making important efforts on trying to be part of the society, by learning either english or german, interacting, and even drawing the german flag

One of the main challenges that we found in that refugee camp was the language. There was a wide variety of nationalities, such as Syrians (mostly), Pakistani, Turkish, Farsi, Moldovans, among others. So, almost none of them spoke english, and as they were in Germany, they were taught German. But nevertheless, we managed to communicate with all of them, by using  body language or also by learning some words in either Arabic, Farsi, Urdu or German.

We also learned about the whole process by which the refugees have to go through, in order to get migration issues done. Every day there were new refugees who arrived, and waited for their documentation to be checked.

We also noticed that the refugee camp was open to all public, so if one day people would like to go and visit the place, you are completely free to go, register, and spend some time with the refugees, which helped them to be more part of german society.
We worked for 5 days, and even though we did not have much time to explore the city, we got to know the most important places. We really enjoyed the trip, and we also learned a lot about the refugees and this whole situation in which they are going through.