sei:dabei is a mentoring project for people who had to flee their home country, for people with disabilities, and for all those who would like to become a volunteer and offer assistance to somebody else.
Would you like to meet new people? At sei:dabei you can meet other people who, like you, are living in Berlin. Some of these people had to flee their home country very recently – others have been living in Berlin for many years. Some of them may have a disability, while others don’t. Together we are the Network of inclusion facilitators. By sharing your strengths and interests, you can become an inclusion facilitator as well. About us and the project
Participate
Become an inclusion facilitator
Join as a mentee
Would you like to learn something new? Would you like to meet new people? Are you looking for support regarding a particular issue? You can get involved if you had to flee your country. Everybody can participate, no matter their residence status. Families with children can join as well. Get involved if you are struggling with health issues, or if you or your children have disabilities. You can participate if you have other problems, for example if you have experienced violence and if you don’t have a home. Tell us why you’d like to participate in the project and how we can help. Join sei:dabei if:
- You would like to meet new people
- You have questions about work, education, and free-time activities in Berlin
- You need help regarding a particular issue
- You have a specific goal that you would like to achieve, and you don’t know how.
The amount of time you will need for the project: 2 to 3 hours per week over the course of 5 to 9 months Would you like to participate in the project? Send us an email to: seidabei@vdk.de or call us at (030) 4140 7318 and 0159-0406 9675.
After a first personal meeting, which will allow you to find out more about our project, we will start looking for a suitable mentor. He or she* will then start supporting you in achieving your individual goals. Our project team will accompany you during the entire duration of the project and can be contacted in case of questions or difficulties.
Join as a mentor
Would you like to do your part in making sure that nobody gets excluded? In this case, you might want to become an inclusion facilitator. As a mentor and volunteer, you will meet with your mentee on a regular basis (once a week). You will support your tandem partner regarding his or her* individual concerns. If you’re interested in volunteering for this project, you should be open and tolerant, interested in meeting new people, reliable, and a good listener. We especially welcome volunteers who had to flee their home country or who have disabilities themselves. Together with your mentee, you could, for example:
- Practice German
- Do homework
- Do fun things together which you both enjoy
- Research information on schools, jobs, apartments, doctors, and health-related issues
- Attend apointments and visit the authorities
- Draft an application and simulate job interviews
- Support your mentee‘s family
- Talk about your experiences. Also, about how you had to leave your country and what it is like to live with a disability.
Time required: 3 to 4 hours per week over the course of 5 to 9 months Would you like to become a volunteer with sei:dabei? Send us an email to: seidabei@vdk.de or call us at (030) 4140 7318 and 0159-0406 9675.
After a personal meeting, which will allow you to find out more about our project, you can get started in our qualification scheme which will provide you with an introduction to mentoring.
We will then introduce you to your mentee. During your time as a volunteer and mentor, our project team will assist you through regular training, supervision, and individual monitoring. The time you spend on the project will be compensated and you are covered by insurance during mentoring-related activities. After completion of your volunteering experience, you will receive a certificate testifying to your participation.
“Being a mentor is a wonderful opportunity to support one of the many asylum seekers in Germany. It allows you to meet the human being behind the ‘refugee crisis’, to find out more about other fascinating cultures, and to learn something about yourself. I am a migrant myself. I therefore know from my own experience how important it is to meet people from your home country when you move to a new place.”
You would like to get involved with your entire family?
If you wish, you and your whole family can participate. Sei:dabei allows you to meet and to get to know other families – families that may have children with or without disabilities.
”Together with my mentor, I drafted applications and visited a job fair. We talked to potential employers and I can now do an internship. All of this has been very useful.“
What is Mentoring?
Mentoring is all about learning. In the mentoring process, a more experienced person and a person who wishes to evolve in certain areas enter into a relationship with the objective to learn. This relationship is formed on a voluntary basis over a longer period of time, the duration of which is specified in advance. We call a more experienced person a mentor and the person wishing to learn something new a mentee. Mentors are volunteers wishing to contribute to society in a meaningful way. A mentee is someone who is looking for support and knowledge exchange in a certain area or regarding a certain issue. He or she may have questions about life in Germany. Or perhaps they are looking to develop their professional situation and need help in order to bring about that change. Together, mentee and mentor form a tandem. It is very important that both partners treat each other with respect. Sei:dabei is about fostering encounters which allow everybody involved to grow. The mentee decides on the direction that the mentoring is supposed to take. He or she* asks questions and points to the information that could be useful to him or her. In addition, it is the mentees that decide about the timeframe during which they want to achieve their goals. By listening to their mentors’ explanations and advice, the mentees acquire new knowledge. Mentors are familiar with different topics, they can offer advice and support, and can point to potential solutions. Mentoring provides an opportunity for mentors and mentees to broaden their horizons, to get to know new people, and to benefit from this experience. Mentoring aims at promoting a person’s autonomy and at enhancing a person’s capacity to find his or her own way around both in private and in professional/school life. Eventually, mentoring is supposed to enable the mentee to do more and more things on his or her* own. Our project team provides support to all mentoring tandems. We offer seminars in order to prepare the mentors for their task. Our events and meetings provide a meeting ground for all project participants. The objective is to build a supportive network where the participants can exchange ideas, get active, and help each other. Mentee and mentor decide where and when they want to meet, but meetings are weekly and each meeting lasts for 2 to 3 hours. A mentoring tandem is formed for a set period of time of 5 to 9 months.
Get involved as a networker
Would you like to become a volunteer? Or are you perhaps interested in being supported by a mentor? Then do get in touch with us. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have other ideas or talents which could help to support our network. We would be happy to look into ways of how you can get involved as a networker with sei:dabei. We look forward to meeting you! Send us an email to seidabei@vdk.de or call us at 01590 4069 675 and (030) 4140 7318. We are happy to call you back in order to make an appointment for a first personal meeting, and we can provide a translator or childcare, if required.
About us and the project
sei:dabei – Networking and mentoring for inclusion facilitators is a project for people who had to flee their home country and for people with disabilities, as well as for all those who would like to become a volunteer and support another person. The project mentors have been living in Berlin for several years and may or may not have a disability. Sometimes, they had to flee their home country or are migrants as well. Refugees with disabilities form a group of people that is often excluded from society and that does not have equal access to the social care system. The aim of this project, referring to the human rights laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is to facilitate equal participation of these people and their families, independent of their country of origin and their residence status. For this purpose, we connect mentors and mentees on a one-to-one basis and build a network in which you can exchange ideas, support each other, and transfer knowledge. Sei:dabei is an independent project that is not linked to any party, religion, or world view. Our guiding principle is to promote inclusion through empowerment. This means that we are working towards equal access to social, cultural, professional, and political life for everybody in Germany. At the same time, sei:dabei takes a firm stance against any form of discrimination of people because of their social, cultural, ethnic and religious background, or on the grounds of their sex, skin colour, sexual identity, disability, age, and world view. The project is sponsored by Integra gGmbH, an inclusive company in accordance with the German Social Code IX. Since its foundation in 1981, Integra has been working towards professional integration of people with disabilities into the general labour market. The project is sponsored by the organisation ‘Aktion Mensch’ , the foundation ‘Stiftung Parität’, and the association “VdK Berlin-Brandenburg”. We are a member of the child sponsorship network ‘Berliner Kinderpatenschaften e.V. (KIPA)’.
