Düsternort, a district of the city Delmenhorst next to Bremen, which can be translated in English as “dark place”. this quarter was commonly known for the high range of social disadvantages. The people where threaten by poverty, addiction, unemployment, low education and ghettoization.
To give social aid to disadvantaged families and diverse communities in Düsternort, the Kinder- und Jugendhaus Horizont was founded in 1986 as an open grow room for children and teenagers in and around Delmenhorst. Our targets are to practice democratic structures and to work on positive life scripts together with the clients.
Since then we grant daily safe rooms and a place for any child and teenager aged between 6-18, to strength their personality with diverse constructive activities and many general cultural and technical skills. Additionally we act as counselors in any questions of education and career, but also as case managers in manifold critical circumstance of life. For this, we have strong cooperation networks to authorities and other Ngo´s.
Because of the change in the global and thereby German society in the past three decades, added with the current refugee crisis in Europe, there is an ongoing breakover heading to the German society, where a main challenge lies in the effective integration of immigrants into the European democratic system in a very short period.
For successful work with these people, we follow some basic principles, which we take out of concepts from foreign aid for forming civil societies in areas of conflicts. Those are:
- We must accept that we cannot see children alone as self-contended personalities but as persons imbedded in family systems.
- To work effectively with children from rural cultures, we need the confidence of the families, so that the new educational influences can be carried into the educational systems inside the families.
- We respect diversity and promote it as our main civil resource.
- We speak German to practice and to familiarize the language naturally to the immigrants.
- Our facility is open for every child and teenager irrespective from race, gender or social origin.
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We belong to the Diakonie, which is one of the most established social welfare organizations of Germany.
Diakonie is a non-profit organization, which works for the Protestant Church. In the region of Oldenburg it offers social assistance and care services with different forms of help. It provides a variety of institutions, such as elderly care, assistance of disabled people and youth services, as well as help for drug addicts and people with a potential risk of drug abuse. Moreover, the parish concerns itself with refugee care, assistance for the homeless, and general social work.
The management of the institutions of the social economy and health care is called Diakonie Service-Centre Oldenburg GmbH (DSO).
