Finding + supporting mentors for pupils in Berlin

Dear PaSch-Friends and Supporters,

we want to keep you updated, what we made happen in the last four months, which were not always easy, and how we had to change some strategies in corona-times.

As we mentioned in our last report, on Saturday, 19^th of September, a big Bicycle Tandem-demonstration was organised by our Berlin Kids-Mentoring Network and PaSch participated, cycling with crowd through Berlin. The idea was to make people and politicians aware of the difficult and precarious situation of our projects. We demand a secure financial situation for our projects and our employees, to be able to support the kids and families with mentorships. A lot of projects struggle each year to finance the following year. It usually takes a lot of effort and time to secure the continuation of the project. Time and effort which we would rather use for bringing more mentors and mentees together and to accompany them in a profound and professional manner. The network designed and handed out nice postcards which the tandems could sign and write on, for example a personal note to politicians why mentoring projects are important to them and which impact they already experienced throughout their mentorship. We hope, that some politicians will read and understand the situation of our projects and will take action to support us.

In October we had to say goodbye to two of our tandems. One of them was a tandem since 2013 and we experienced a lot together! What we learned in our farewell meeting, that a goodbye is not always sad but also very nice in a way: we laughed a lot about their funniest situations together or asked, what they will do in 5 years, when they meet again. The boy, then 18, wants to teach her mentors son how to play football. And in ten years? Well he wants to show her his own villa. J So we know, they will stay in contact and are now friends forever, but they don’t need PaSch anymore. Our second mentorship said goodbye, because our mentor got pregnant and our mentee got older and much more independent. So they said, they stop the mentorship but of course will stay in contact as well. For their personal farewell meeting, they decided to visit Madame Tussauds and had a nice time together. PaSch is able to invite our mentors to such an important event only because of your donation! Thank you!

During fall, we were able to talk to more new volunteers who want to become a mentor and in November we switched from one to one meetings at PaSch to online meetings via videocall. It worked out quite well. Our workshop planned at PaSch for our 9 new mentors in November, we had to reorganize due to the lockdown restriction and offered it online as well. We had an intense and nice evening and were happy to finally train our new mentors in a new setting for all of us.

After the workshop we, especially our colleague responsible for the families, could arrange some more online meetings with new families and this worked out better than we expected. Our colleague responsible for the mentors also introduced herself and said hello online for some minutes to get to know each other and in the end to be able to match better. That is what we did in December, match mentors and mentees in mind. Due to the stronger Corona restrictions we decided not to start matching and rather wait until January and start in 2021 with new power.

But at least we were able to offer a last get together online with our active mentors and had a nice Friday evening in a women’s round. We were very happy to hear, that our mentors and their mentees could meet most of the time in person, mainly outside, but all of them found good ways and nice ideas what to do together.

In December we always send to our mentors and mentees and friends of PaSch a Christmas card. Normally it includes an invitation to a thank you party to all the volunteers from PaSch which is held also for many other people within our Community Centre. This time we cannot plan such an event but at least send a nice winter card to our families and mentors (as you can see in the photo). We also handed out little surprise bags to some of our mentorships (with kids under 12 years). They contained small presents like a book, a soap, recipes etc. and a nice calendar for 2021 from an NGO called Pindactica, where the tandems can solve riddles and other tasks with the theme of trees in Berlin every month.

In a few days, we will start our first digital mentorship because due to the situation we don’t want to risk anything. But hopefully in February our new mentorships will meet in real life accompanied by PaSch the first time. Then the tandems will be able to arrange on their own either online or offline meetings depending on the situation. We see a lot of families having a hard time with homeschooling, because some parents are not even alphabetised. We hope that the online support of our mentors will help the mentees so they won’t be behind in school. We also already received some donations in form of laptops, computers, tablets which we want to borrow our mentees and their family during their mentorship, so they will be able to stay in contact online with their mentor and also be able to do some online homeschooling. In our project some families don’t have laptops, computers or tablets at home, so they are not even able to do homeschooling if the teachers don’t offer them to pick up documents at school.

We hope that we will overcome this situation healthy and safe and that soon, the kids can be kids again playing outside with more friends, meet their mentors and go to school once more. Until then, we try to support the families, mentees and mentors the best we can.

PaSch says thank you for every donation you made! Stay safe and healthy!

Dear friends of PaSch,

we are so happy to be able to share with you some sweet stories and tell you all about the progress and activities that took place at Pasch after the lockdown and summer vacation.

Finally, one new mentee and one mentor had the chance to get to know each other after lockdown and summer vacation. In our programme we accompany the first three meetings which take place in our community centre. Our mentor and mentee found out on their first meeting that they have a lot in common. Almost all of their interests are the same: they like music, they like to sing and dance, they love to be outside and for example play football, they like to paint and do handicrafts… Although we have some restrictions and safety precautions due to Covid-19 and have to wear masks and sit next to each other with distance, we all had the impression, that the first meeting was full of interest, and in an open and warm atmosphere. After a short introduction of each of them, mentee, 8-year-old, mentor, 24-year-old, the mother and the project staff left them alone to talk and get to know each other better. Each of them draw a really nice picture and gave it to one another. They also gathered ideas what they can do together after the three meetings at Pasch. On their second meeting they played UNO, a card game, and made some mathematics and just yesterday, they signed their contract and draw some nice pictures. They have great ideas what to do together and want to paint, play basketball, dance in the park, learn mathematics and German together (they are both not German native speaker). You can see on the pictures, that this mentor mentee couple is very creative and we think, they will have a good time together. We are really excited to hear and report about what the two of them will do together in their mentorship.

We were also happy to tell you another sweet story about a mentorship, they know each other for one year now. Our mentor told us that she had to go to rehab for 3 weeks. On their last meeting before rehab, he didn’t want his mentor to leave. Then he asked the mentor, if she would come next week. She told her mentee, that unfortunately they cannot see each other for about 3 weeks, because she has to go to rehab. He was sad and he answered: “oh men, I fart on this rehab and then you can come back!” They arranged a meeting after rehab and there was great joy on their next reunion. Our mentor also told us, that her mentee made a huge progress in talking German. He is Syrian and came to Germany about 2 years ago. Usually he had to asked his elder brother to translate some words or sentences from Arabic in German, but now he talks a lot and really seems to feel comfortable talking German. We are really happy to hear about that and see, that being in School again and the meetings with his mentor helps him to talk more fluently and feel safe in this new language.

From 11^th until 20^th of September the so called Volunteer Days Berlin take place with activities all over Berlin. Our community center also offers different activities, for example an online meeting with the topic: “Your hood. Your commitment.” Here volunteers talk about their volunteer work and projects they are involved in. One of our PaSch mentors will talk about her mentorship. We also offer a clean-up action at a little lake. Due to the Corona situation we are not able to organize really big events and just offer activities adapted to the situation, so that everyone stays safe.
On the 12^th of September, last Saturday, PaSch and another project of our community center offered a re-/upcycling and waste workshop in our community center during Volunteer Days and invited our mentor and mentee couples and also neighbors. We met at 11h close by and started the day with cleaning our district - or at least a part of it at the small river “Panke” - where we found lots of waste close to playgrounds, in bushes and next to benches - where you are supposed to relax and enjoy nature. We found all kinds of waste people throw away, for example old and really dirty clothes, a stove top, electronic cables, parts of a wooden bed, a lot of face masks, bottles, lots of cigarette ends or crown caps… We were wondering and sad, why people throw away so many things into nature and don’t realize how they damage nature and themselves with their actions. When we returned to our community center, we offered a lunch bag and drinks for everyone to thank our supporters and to strengthen ourselves before the workshop started. Due to the Corona situation we could only offer packed food and had to put it in an extra bag for everyone and offered closed little glass bottles for everyone. We tried to avoid producing a lot of waste, so we used cloth bags for the lunch bags and everyone had one for their sculptures to carry home and we told them that they can use it as a shopping bag or to carry sport clothes to School and so on. The Workshop started and we learned about what waste and recycling is all about and even what you can do with waste – for example sculptures and other useful stuff. Then we played a game, where the kids were divided into two groups, each of them had the same number of waste parts in one box. Then, one of each group had to run to the waste bins standing further away and sort in their pieces of waste (paper, plastic, glass) and return to the group, then the next kid could start. That was a lot of fun and they put almost all the waste in the right bin. After that, we threw all the waste we gathered over the last weeks in the middle of the group and they were allowed to look for stuff they wanted to create new things with. They created diverse and also some useful things like a savings box or instruments or a little house, a sheep and cars and had fun to recreate things with waste.

In the last weeks we were also able to talk with a lot of interested volunteers and were able to meet 4 of them in person already. We informed about our programme and the procedure and got to know them closer. We also arranged 3 more meetings with interested volunteers in September and October and plan to do a training for them in November. Until then, our colleague responsible for the families, will have some more meetings with interested families and kids.

What comes next? On Saturday, 19^th of September there is a big Bicycle Tandem-demonstration organised by our Berlin Kids-Mentoring Network. Pasch will be there too of course. We want to make people and politicians aware of the difficult and precarious situation of our projects. We demand a secure financial situation for our projects and our employees so we will be able to support the kids and families with mentorships. A lot of projects have to struggle each year financing the following year. It costs a lot of effort and time to secure the continuation of the project. Time and effort which we would rather use for bringing together more mentors and mentees and accompany them in a profound and professional manner.

We hope that we can continue with the matchings and that more mentees and mentors will get to know each other. We try to organize a get together with our mentors again which we had to skip due to the Corona situation. We will also think of a next get together with all mentor and mentee couples or a workshop for our mentors… We will tell you all about that in our next report!

Pasch says thank you for your support and stay healthy and safe!