• The Berlin Lesson: Trust People, Not Bureaucracies

    The Berlin Lesson: Trust People, Not Bureaucracies

    I was reading Walter’s article about volunteering, and made me think deeply. I come from a society where volunteering was never a tradition. The imperative was: everyone takes care of themselves. If someone works unpaid, they are considered a loser or being taken advantage of. Applying to university never required any kind of volunteer experience, […]

  • From Glitter to Growth: How Taylor Coburn Found Her Shine in Berlin

    From Glitter to Growth: How Taylor Coburn Found Her Shine in Berlin

    I had the pleasure of sitting down with an immigrant change-maker who encourages fellow immigrants from all walks of life to build their lives here in Berlin, instead of just scraping by and letting social norms, visas, or rules rob them of their ability to thrive.  Taylor Coburn is involved in many projects around the […]

  • The Power of Ehrenamt: Finding Connection Through Volunteering in Berlin

    The Power of Ehrenamt: Finding Connection Through Volunteering in Berlin

    The news is grim these days. Everywhere we look things are going off the rails. The cost of living, and the political maneuverings… everything seems like too much, too soon, and too fast. And it’s easy to give in to the atomization of 21st century life; we are millions of people living alone. Alone in […]

  • Six Pictures from the Future — A Glimpse into Tomorrow’s Berlin

    Six Pictures from the Future — A Glimpse into Tomorrow’s Berlin

    For a campaign, you need many elements — but everything starts with funding. That’s why we first want to give enormous thanks to the supporters of WahlheYmatPost, to everyone who believes in what we do and why we do it: the Welcome Alliance Fund by ProjectTogether and the Bundesministerium des Inneren. And a heartfelt thank-you […]

  • Welcome to the Club: How Vereine Can Turn Berlin from a City of Strangers into a Home

    Welcome to the Club: How Vereine Can Turn Berlin from a City of Strangers into a Home

    In 2000 Robert D. Putnam published a book, “Bowling Alone”, in which he argued that Americans were becoming increasingly isolated and removed from community and social capital. He took the institution of the Bowling League as his prime example. I remember when the book came out – though, admittedly, I never got around to reading […]

  • The Kiez: Where Berlin Becomes Personal

    The Kiez: Where Berlin Becomes Personal

    I’ve often said that in France every region has its dish, its wine, and its cheese; in Germany, every region has its dish, beer, sausage…and language. If we learned German before coming here, we learned “High German” (Hochdeutsch) – because it’s spoken in the high country… not because it’s lofty, or something – and then […]

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