A patron for children, at home and abroad

Social workers at the nonprofit organization Karuna try to make it easy for youths to come in off the streets. The group’s building in the Friedrichshain neighborhood is open to dogs - common companions to the city’s drifters. There’s a hot lunch and a chance to do arts and crafts. For participants with no other income, there is even a stipend of €1,50 an hour. It may be a pittance, but it can free up time they otherwise would have spent begging.

"Street kid for a day": Terre des Hommes shows German children first-hand what street life is really like. Photo: Christel Kovermann / terres des hommes

The stipend-based workshop is a new model for outreach to Straßenkinder, or street children - young people tangled in a web of unemployment, homelessness and drugs. Karuna runs the program, but it’s not alone:  Standing behind the project is the German branch of Terre des Hommes, a patron to children all over the world.

Youth helping youth

Terre des Hommes Deutschland provides financial backing for Karuna and more than 450 projects around the world, with a major focus on children. The group is part of a federation that was founded in Switzerland in 1960 and now has branches in 10 countries. Terre des Hommes means “world of mankind” in French.

Rather than managing projects directly, Terre des Hommes funnels money to local organizations and monitors their progress. But the group is more than just a financial spigot. It has a deep network of volunteers who raise awareness about children’s rights at events across the country. Many of them are university and school students who are as young as those they are trying to help.

Esther Engraf, 22, has been involved with Terre des Hommes since 2008, when she helped organize a festival for children’s rights.

“It gives me a broad perspective on this global issue (and) all the things that play into children’s rights,” said Engraf, a student of social work at the Technical College of Osnabrück.

Children can be the best advocates for their peers, Terre des Hommes volunteers have found.

Engraf said her Terre des Hommes training made her realize “how much (children) can accomplish if you just support them – but really just support them, and don’t give them too many prescriptions.”

Osnabrück social work student Lisa Gaßmann, 21, helped a group of school students prepare for the same festival Engraf worked on and said they already seemed to know a lot about the issues.

“They were so dedicated,” she said.
 
Rolf Baasch, 24, helped start a Terre des Hommes chapter at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2008 (http://www.uni-erlangen.org/). His chapter has set up exhibits about internally displaced persons, collected red handprints from volunteers to raise awareness of child soldiers (http://www.redhandday.org/) and helped a Namibian non-governmental organization contact Terre des Hommes for talks about financing.

Baasch, who studies political science and economics, said Terre des Hommes volunteers have great freedom to decide what they will work on.

“It’s good that you’re so independent,” he said.

Most of the Erlangen group is nearing the end of their studies, but they want their chapter to survive.

“We’re feverishly looking for new members,” Baasch said.

Experience and money

Based in Osnabrück, the German branch of Terre des Hommes started in 1967 as an aid effort for children injured in the Vietnam War. Since then, it has grown into an organization with an annual budget over €20 million. Private donations are its biggest source of income, but Terre des Hommes also gets funding from the European Union and the German government.

The money supports children’s projects around the world and closer to home.

Berlin is a magnet for runaways fleeing from difficult family circumstances and other social pressures, said André Vick, who runs Karuna’s Straßenkinder program. His goal is to get them started on a path to improving their lives.

“We have to be able to grab them somehow,” he said. “We have to break through the routine of life on the street.”

Karuna tries to do so in its workshop, where youths can pursue crafts such as printing T-shirts. Those who attend commit to sticking with the program for several weeks and participate in counseling. Karuna runs two other workshops in the same building for young people who are supervised by the government unemployment office. Participants can graduate from the Straßenkinder workshop to one of the others.

Terre des Hommes gives the workshop about €38,000 in annual support, a grant funded by donations from employees of the carmaker Volkswagen, according to Karuna. The support has been invaluable, said Karuna Executive Director Jörg Richert.

“They’ve been on our side for four and half years, financially and with advice (and connections) with other German organizations and … with foreign partners,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“(Terre des Hommes is) an extraordinary group, very democratic,” he added. “They like to share: experience and also money.”