• What Happened When I Tried to Organize My Neighbors 

    What Happened When I Tried to Organize My Neighbors 

    There’s a lot of talk today about building community. At our March WahlheYmat Talk, the crowd brought up the subject, specifically that we should be creating more of it. Ideas flew around the room. We are living in an era of schism, where the people pulling the levers of power are trying to create an […]

  • The Good, the Bad, and the Arbeitsamt

    The Good, the Bad, and the Arbeitsamt

      Most places have an arm of the government to help folks out when they’re unemployed; governments like their citizens to have jobs and pay taxes. It tends to keep the governments – and the citizens – happy. There’s also the matter of not letting people starve in the street when they’re out of work. […]

  • One In Four Berliners Cannot Vote: Europe Still Struggles With Migrant Political Participation

    One In Four Berliners Cannot Vote: Europe Still Struggles With Migrant Political Participation

    A recent report by the Migration Policy Group, a think tank based in Brussels, shows that Germany is among the best of the worst when it comes to enabling and encouraging the political participation of immigrants. Germany’s score in this is only a small part of the bleak findings from the report’s Political Participation Index, […]

  • The Berlin Blueprint: Participation as the Ultimate Act of Self-Determination

    The Berlin Blueprint: Participation as the Ultimate Act of Self-Determination

    In the glossy catalogs of modern wellness, “self-help” is often sold as a retreat from the world: a private journey of healing through products and quiet contemplation. Berlin’s history, however, offers a more rugged, democratic alternative. In this city, wellbeing has never been found in isolation. It has been forged through participation. To be a […]

  • Nebenkostenabrechnung: The Reckoning No One Explains

    Nebenkostenabrechnung: The Reckoning No One Explains

    TL;DR If you’re in Germany, be ready for big costs at the end of the year. You should also always have a savings pool to deal with random, crazy, unexpected bills that might show up. They tend to do that as the year ends.   We just had another Christmas in Germany. And wasn’t it magical, […]

  • Papers, please! — How I Turned a 90-Day Visa into a Home in Berlin

    Papers, please! — How I Turned a 90-Day Visa into a Home in Berlin

    When you’re trying to set up your life in Berlin, visas are one of the first things you need to get in order. Unless you’re an EU citizen, you can’t live and work in Germany without one. Simple as that! But there are a whole bunch of different visa options. Should you try for the […]

Address

Am Hamburger Bahnhof 3
10557 Berlin
Germany

hey@wahlheymat.de

Social Networks