Migrant kids get entrance card to Germany on wheels

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/migrant-kids-get-entrance-card-to-germany-on-wheels/a-18753184

Migrant children may not attend regular day care centers and can have trouble integrating into German society. So social workers in caravans are bringing kindergartens to them. Reyhaneh Azizi reports from Gelsenkirchen.

Migrant kids get entrance card to Germany on wheels
Reyhaneh Azizi
04.10.2015

Children are running around the playground, some are playing cards with their teachers, others are doing physical exercise. This looks a lot like a regular kindergarten, but it isn't. The kids are all from migrant families and the classroom is on wheels, a "mobile kindergarten," or MoKi, that travels around Gelsenkirchen offering childcare and education.

Established by the city council, MoKi sends social workers in two caravans outfitted as kindergartens to neighborhoods with high proportions of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. When the caravans park and open their doors the children take off running, as if they had been eagerly awaiting their arrival. Each caravan is equipped with colored pencils, paper and picture books and can accommodate 25 to 30 children.

Project coordinator Yvonne Bakenecker and her team of five do their best to make the children's day, especially since they only stay at each location for a few hours at a time. The MoKis go to different parts of the city on weekdays, usually visiting two different neighborhoods each day.

Multilingual playground

This afternoon, a girl and a boy are playing with cards. She hands him one and then promptly complains that he didn't thank her. "Danke schön," the boy says, to which the girl responds "bitte schön." Such small conversations in German are a gateway to integration.