Dedicated sponsors wanted
"Making family possible again" - this is the motto of the official launch of the "Family Sponsorships" project, a joint initiative of SkF Aachen and SKM Aachen in the Aachener Bündnis für Familie. "We want to create an additional offer of help for families and support them in coping with their everyday burdens. To this end, we are looking for committed sponsors as helpers, confidants and discussion partners who have solid life experience, patience, empathy and tolerance as well as the willingness to build a long-term relationship," says Mechthild Freese, Managing Director of SKM Aachen, describing the idea behind the project described in more detail below.
Parenthood is a challenge
Most people only realize the challenges of parenthood once they have started a family themselves. Many experience parenthood as an endurance run - taking a deep breath becomes a foreign concept. The offspring make demands, the environment makes demands, institutions make demands, the future makes demands. The quality of life, the quality of the partnership and the quality of family life often fall by the wayside during this endurance run. Constant tension or even a constant feeling of being overwhelmed can eventually lead to health, social or even educational problems.
Sponsors relieve families in everyday life
This is precisely where the family sponsorship project comes in. Women and men with life experience are called upon to get involved as family mentors:
Family mentors visit a family for a few hours at a time of their choosing to be there as a partner for children and parents. Through their voluntary work, they make a small but very important contribution to relieving families in their everyday lives and protecting them from break-up. They give the children undivided attention and appreciation as well as new opportunities for play, experiences and development. And they give the parenting mothers and fathers a little time out, space for other activities and their experience.
The rules
ideas and solidarity in family matters. This commitment from family sponsors is good for children and parents - and usually also for the sponsors themselves. SKM and SkF bring families and sponsors together. The following rules apply:
- Families can be sure that they will meet experienced, empathetic and committed mentors who will treat them as equals.
- And: sponsors can rely on the fact that they can get involved with families in a way that suits their experience, skills and expectations.
For this to succeed, it is important for all parties to get to know each other well at the beginning and to make binding agreements. All questions relating to volunteering as a family mentor are clarified in a discussion with the project employee, social education worker Eva-Maria Wagner.
Unique national project
The SKM and SkF Aachen family sponsorship project is unique in the country. There are similar model projects in other federal states. The Family Sponsorships project is designed to run for at least five years, which is a long time these days. This ensures the necessary continuity and reliability for all those involved.
The family sponsorship project is the first project in the local alliance for families. It is carried out in close cooperation with the city of Aachen.
First results
Mechthild Freese, Managing Director of SKM Aachen, Ursula Braun-Kurzmann, Managing Director of SkF Aachen and Eva-Maria Wagner, employee of the family sponsorship project, presented the first results to the public on August 31, 2006.
Great response to the first call
The response to the first call was enormous: numerous men and women contacted Eva-Maria Wagner because they wanted to get involved as a family mentor. Today, there are 34 family mentors who visit a total of 32 families on a self-chosen rotational basis, providing a great deal of relief with small amounts of help. 27 families are on the waiting list.
Many of the family mentors are women who have just completed their own family phase. Overall, the age spectrum ranges from 24 to 73 years.
Encouraging first experiences
At present, 20 families in Aachen are being looked after by sponsors, and a further 18 have already registered and are looking for such support.
From the contacts with the families and the sponsors, it is clear how much relief even small amounts of help are for the families: emotionally as well as in everyday practical terms.
Families with a single parent as well as families with three or more children make up the majority of the families that the sponsors visit.
There are experienced men and women who are happy to invest their time and life experience in families.
In the short time that has passed, a lively circle of sponsors has formed, who have approached their work with confidence and derive great pleasure from this responsible commitment.
More sponsors wanted
Anyone who would like to join the 23 sponsors is very welcome. There are no special requirements for the commitment. Life experience and the right attitude towards families and commitment are what count.