When you live in a small space with your parents and many siblings, there is always a certain level of noise. If there is only one cell phone for several children during online lessons, as in the Corona lockdown, learning becomes difficult. This happened again and again to the children of the Fakher-Ali family (name changed) during the Corona period. The Iraqi family lives with eight out of ten children – two daughters have now moved out – in two apartments of around 28 square meters in a property in Obermenzing, which is looked after by the district associations of Arbeiterwohlfahrt (Awo) in the city and district of Munich. Thanks to a donation of the advent calendar for good works of Süddeutsche Zeitung such tense learning situations should no longer occur. What’s more, the children have become interested in tinkering with electronic devices.
Because the Fakher-Ali family got a laptop, an MS Office license, a printer and a headset. “The headset too, so that they can learn without being disturbed,” says educator Hayam Halawa, who has long accompanied and supported the family, who fled the war in Iraq in 2014 and has lived in the facility since 2018. The children of the family had a lot of fun with the devices right from the start. It quickly became apparent that the donation was a good investment, as Halawa says. So they couldn’t wait to unpack. As the teacher explains, they fiddled around until they had everything set up and able to put it into operation, except for the software. “It was a sense of achievement for her,” says the teacher.
One of the daughters had so much fun doing it that she now wants to do an internship in electronics. In everyday life, the family uses the laptop to keep in touch with friends, to send documents to sports clubs and to practice writing quickly. The devices were also worth their weight in gold when a family member was ill and the family had to spend a lot of time in the apartment because of the risk of infection. This allowed the children to keep in touch with their teachers and friends.
More than 50 families from around 25 countries live in the facility
Thanks to a donation from the SZ Advent calendar, the other residents of the facility have also been able to improve their computer skills. A laptop and a printer were also purchased for the common room. More than 50 families from around 25 countries such as Iraq and Eritrea, but also from Germany, currently live in the accommodation. Among other things, they have all either lost their homes or found jobs, but have not yet found a roof over their heads. The team at the facility helps the residents in all aspects of life, be it dealing with the authorities or with their homework – all in the sense of helping them to help themselves. In this way, others can also benefit from the new technology.
Angela Pfister-Resch, who heads the facility, talks about women who once wanted to get to grips with computers, for example to download an application. However, she also reports that some preschool children did not get a place in kindergarten this year and that they are now using “great learning software” on the laptop. “We have established times when we work on it with the preschool children,” says the director. In doing so, they made it possible “that they don’t appear as outsiders because they haven’t completed the last year of kindergarten,” says Pfister-Resch. Trainees also benefit from the computer because they can familiarize themselves with Office applications and write this down in their application. Even a “grandmother from Africa”, as Halawa says, is happy with the devices: Apparently she has printed something out for the first time in her life. “Since then she comes every day.”
The SZ Advent calendar was also able to help Roza and her mother Miroslava G. with a donation. In 2020, the mother decided to leave Bulgaria with her daughter and build a new life in Germany. She had separated from the girl’s father. Mother and daughter found a place to stay in a homeless shelter in the municipality of Planegg, where they live in a very small space in just one room. Miroslava quickly got a cleaning job in Germany, but soon lost it again because of the corona pandemic. Both wanted some retreat and freedom, especially during the Corona period.
Thanks to the donation, Miroslava was able to bring many small joys to her daughter, who is now in the second grade. “She kept the money and always bought Roza something nice,” says Tanja Fees from the housing emergency service of Arbeiterwohlfahrt, which accompanies the family, because the mother’s parents also live in the homeless shelter. So the wife bought her daughter a pink bicycle, later a handicraft set or dolls. Sometimes Roza also comes to Fees, chooses something with her on the computer and says “that Mom will then give me the money,” as the Awo employee describes it. The girl now also has a desk, which Fees organized through donations and where the second grader now does her homework, but can also use her handicraft set. Your own little feel-good area has been created.
Here’s how you can donate
“Advent calendar for good works of the Süddeutsche Zeitung eV”
Stadtsparkasse Munich
IBAN: DE86 7015 0000 0000 600700
BIC: SSKMDEMMXXX
www.sz-adventskalender.dewww.facebook.com/szaadventskalender