Neighbourhood café

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Weekly open meeting point for refugees and other people creating
community and offering the possibility to practice the new language.

“Be patient and do not expect perfection.”

Description of the activity

Once a week a neighborhood café takes place in common room of the temporary housing facility. The garden group and other members of the housing facility make sure cakes, cookies, fruit, juices, tea, coffee and water available. People come together, enjoy and have conversations. The neighborhood café also invites people from the district of Koepenik and the wider community. In addition, the event is an opportunity to practice German.

Competences

The activity requires organisational skills, as people from the neighborhood need to be invited and food needs to be made available. Further intercultural competences and social competences are required as the café is open to people of different nationalities, religions, ages and social strata. The managers need to be able to approach people and facilitate conversation. It is desirable to have some knowledge about local politics and events occurring in the district as this allows to the cafe to connect with different people

Steps for the implementation of the activity

Before the café takes place, people need to be invited (neighborhood) or reminded (housing facility) that they are welcome to join the group for coffee and conversation. Food need to be organised. The organiser has an overview about who brings food or drinks, what needs to be purchased and reimbursed. On the day that the café takes place the room need to be prepared. This includes providing plates, cups and cutlery, food and board games.

At 4 pm people join and get together.

Materials and methods

Anyone who wishes to participate can contribute to the activities.

Infrastructure:
A common room or kitchen, where 10-50 people can be hosted is required.

Materials and human resources:
It requires five people who can prepare for the café and mingle with people from the neighborhood, the housing facility and the garden group. These people should be able to initiate conversations. Food and drinks are required to be supplied.

Time/Workload:
10-30 Euro depending on the number of people joining.

Costs:
The cost of making a bird bath in concrete is: 8 Euro. Purchases are made of buckets to mix concrete in, ladles to touch concrete and water, concrete, protective gloves, plastic bags to the surface between sand and leaves that give relief, sandpaper to trim the finished work. The sum of the purchases will be 50 euros, and this is shared between 6 bird baths, so each bird bath costs 8 euros.

Learning outcomes for the participants

The activity aims to build community and allows the participants to practice their language skills in an informal manner. The café aims to bring people of different ages and backgrounds together.

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