WahlheYmat was launched as an initiative on 15 September 2023, with Democracy Day providing the occasion. So this week, we turn three years old.
Some international Berliners, including our co-founders, asked the question: If Berlin has become diverse and international, wouldn’t it be better to govern the city together?
We had almost a hundred conversations with very different people about this question. We came to the conclusion that Berlin needs the participation of expats, immigrants, refugees, students and families in its political and social life.
We created a name, a manifesto and a slogan – thanks to our friends!
We were convinced that our story was so strong that it would be easy to organise a launch event at the Futurium, as they were running a programme around democracy that year.
We were very surprised when they rejected our request. So we organised the event in the Futurium’s café instead.
Never give up!
On 18 September 2025, the first test edition of WahlheYmatPost was published. So this is our very first birthday!
Looking back, the launch was a real success story. We had a strong partner in the Berliner Morgenpost and Funke Mediengruppe. We received funding from ProjectTogether. We found a strong and enthusiastic editor-in-chief, Michaela; a fantastic copy editor and content creator, Kian; and discovered that some members of our team have real journalistic talent, like Walter and Bori.
We did many things over the course of the year, but we are especially proud of the Berlin Wiki series – everything newly naturalised Berliners should know about elections.
We hope many people from this group will vote this Sunday.
We also hope we managed to get our message across with StimmlosTrend: there are 851,000 people in Berlin without voting rights – and 96% of them want to take part!
International people are game changers in this city.
Whatever the result on Sunday, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., we at WahlheYmat have a dream.
We dream of a peaceful, international society in Berlin.
We dream of understanding each other, even when we speak different languages.
We dream of a city where civic movements work together and strengthen each other.
We dream of a city government that serves all its residents and cooperates with civic organisations.
We dream of a future where racism and discrimination are just a bad dream.
Go and vote!
(Header image: © Phil Hearing | Unsplash)
