This is how strangers become friends

Created: 12/21/2021, 12:15 PM

From: Petra Straub

Efrem Ataklti from Eritrea found work with the support of the Starnberg asylum helpers and the volunteer Uschi Koch-Bagli.

Today the husband and father of two children, who lives in Tutzing, works in an injection molding company in Feldafing.

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Starnberg / Feldafing - Volunteers have been helping refugees find their way around their new home on Lake Starnberg for many years. Five of these people have now received an award from the Foreigners' Advisory Council of the Starnberg district on behalf of many more. The so-called integration prize is endowed with prize money of 1,250 euros. The Starnberg district messenger asked the award winners Uschi Koch-Bagli from the Feldafing asylum helpers and learning helper Norbert Franken from Percha how integration works on site.

The asylum helpers group in Feldafing has existed since 2015. Uschi Koch-Bagli (68) has since been active there in the “Work” action group and, together with other helpers, tries to get refugees into work. “Work is pretty much the best and most important means of integration,” she says, proudly referring to 14 people who have already completed vocational training in recent years. Today your protégés work in retail, as mechatronics technicians, interior decorators and production assistants, as chemical laboratory technicians, in horticulture, security guards, in catering and care. The fact that the refugees are becoming more and more part of society is also thanks to local employers. “For all of the refugees, their knowledge of German and their knowledge of life here have improved significantly through work,” she notes.Nonetheless, she keeps getting an "emergency call" in a short message: "Mom, I got a letter!" Then she also helps the young people to decipher the official German.

Feldafing has become home to the refugees

As a teenager, Uschi Koch-Bagli lived in Iraq for a few years when her parents worked there. Perhaps it was this experience that showed her the way to the asylum aid group in her home town. “The Afghans were very familiar to me right away,” explains the filmmaker, who later also spent a lot of time abroad during her studies and professionally and always received support from locals there herself. Of the 110 refugees that started out, around 30 are still living in Feldafing, according to the asylum worker. Feldafing is her village, she hears that again and again from Afghans, Eritreans, Iraqis and Syrians and, in times of housing shortage, appeals to landlords in the region to give foreign applicants a chance to look for accommodation. decent and reliable people,who value stable relationships. ”She is now on friendly terms with many of them and appreciates their respectful manners. You invite each other, go on excursions in the mountains and to the museum and support each other.

"And there are always tasks in the group of helpers," says Uschi Koch-Bagli.

Especially in the pandemic, when many application forms have to be filled out online and the refugees lack the technical know-how and equipment such as printers or scanners.

Or for English, German or math lessons, job and apartment hunting.

Therefore, the helpers can always use support.

Interested parties are welcome to get in touch.

By the way, the committed lady has already distributed her prize money - to the helpers who use it to provide school, professional or medical help, as well as the well-known associations Deutsche Tibethilfe and “Tutzing helps on the Mediterranean”, which also supports refugee aid.

Norbert Franken supports children and young people in Percha

About five years ago, Norbert Franken from Percha also began to get involved with refugees.

At that time, the internationally active doctor of biology retired and turned to the asylum helpers in Starnberg.

"There are many children who speak little German," he was told there.

Even childless, but still fondly remembered the tutoring as a student (“I always had a lot of fun working with children and young people”), the retiree embarked on a new field of activity.

He has now taught German to 15 children from seven families, as he says.

Among the constantly changing students (there are currently four new families in the shared accommodation) are children of an Afghan family that Franken has been looking after since 2015.

Twice a week in the afternoons he goes to the communal accommodation in Percha for two to three hours to help with homework and study and teaches material “with common sense and a lot of tolerance towards the children”. Often also during the school holidays. The age range is large - elementary and middle school students study in small groups. When the girls and boys reach their class goal at the end of the school year, their supporters are also very happy about their success. Because he has grown really fond of the children, he explains, they meet him at ease, sing something and get answers to life questions from him.

They also like the Christmas atmosphere and celebrations with gifts, waffles and punch, which were last possible in 2018 due to the pandemic.

From time to time there are other learning aids in the communal accommodation in Percha.

The offer can currently be offered four days a week through a student project on a mini-job basis.

"In all school subjects with a focus on German, as well as math and English for older students," explains Franken.

The money from his integration prize should also benefit the students, for learning material, an ice cream or a round of mini golf - if the pandemic situation allows it again.