Finding + supporting mentors for pupils in Berlin

Dear donors,

like mentioned in our last report, on 25^th of May the annual festival for the neighborhood took place again, which is organized in community centers all over Europe. We spent a nice afternoon with neighbors, supporters and friends with music, food and shows from groups practicing in our community center.

Since we had numerous interviews with interested volunteers, we were able to offer another workshop for them in the end of June. Unfortunately, not all of the interested volunteers were able to make it due to illness or work, but four of them participated in our workshop. In July summer break started for our school kids in Berlin, what means that a lot of new mentees as well as mentors are on holidays. But we still try to match some of the mentors and mentees that stay in Berlin for summer and will continue when school starts again in the end of August.

We already talked about farewells of mentees and mentors in our last report. In July unfortunately another mentor told us, he has to end his involvement in the program because he moves to Italy for at least one year to continue his studies abroad. This mentor/mentee match signed their contract in February 2016 and the mentee, a boy, is almost 14 years old. So, we arranged a little farewell here and talked about the reason why we have to end it, what they experienced together and what they think were the highlights. The mentee answered that everything they did was great. He and his mother were really thankful for the time the mentor spent with him. We looked at the documents of 2016 and remembered that they made a drawing instead of writing down what they want to do together (as you can see on the picture). Looking at the picture, they realized, that they actually did almost all the things they agreed on and, of course, even more. But there was one thing they didn’t do so far – a barbecue together. Since we always suggest also having a more personal farewell together as a last meeting, they decided to do a barbecue in a few weeks.
The mentee is not interested in a new mentor because he is now old enough and also shares every free time with friends. But we asked if his little sister is interested, since she already mentioned sometimes she would love to have a mentor as well. So we try to find a mentor for his little sister.

One highlight for all the kids that stay in Berlin during summer break will be the trip to an evening session of the European Athletics Championship. This year the European Athletics Championship takes place in Berlin between the 7^th and 12^th of August. We, as the project PaSch, asked the organization if it was possible to get some free tickets for our mentees and mentors, so especially the mentees would be able to get the opportunity to visit a special sport event like that - and also be able to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium. Luckily, they agreed and offered us free tickets. So, we are happy that around 20 (!) mentees and mentors are able to visit the European Athletics Championship together on 7^th of August - though it is summertime and a lot of the mentees are on vacation. We will definitely report the next time about our joint trip to the European Athletics Championship.

What will be next?

We are looking forward to offer another workshop for mentors and match some more new mentor/mentee couples.

We are excited to offer a recycling and waste workshop in our community center during the Berlin volunteer days in September and will definitely invite our matches to first help clean our district and then, during the workshop, learn about what waste and recycling is all about and even what you can do with waste – sculptures and other useful stuff.

We say thank you for your donation and your support and a great summertime for everyone!