News from the VbFF – Association for the Professional Advancement of Women e.V.

Since 1978, the VbFF has been supporting women and girls in all professional matters: from education to job and career planning to coaching for management positions. It is the oldest institution of its kind in Hesse. More than 40 female staff members are involved in various counselling services, training projects and courses.

German and creative lessons for women with a refugee and migration background

Thanks to the funds raised through the action programme “Perspectives for Women”, the VbFF was able to offer additional German and creative lessons for women with a refugee and migration background. These include language and maths cafés, various voice and speech training sessions, individual German support lessons or the dance project TABEA. The help benefits refugee women with very little language skills just as much as women who are taking part in a preparatory course or are already in training. Such individual offers are not provided for in the regular funding of public donors. As examples, the VbFF has reported to us on the TABEA dance project and the German language café:

The TABEA dance project

During our work with refugee women in the VbFF, it became clear that especially women and girls who live in shelters or so-called “hotels” are very entrenched in family structures and have hardly any contact with the outside world. But it is precisely these contacts that are urgently needed for language acquisition and ultimately for the women’s participation in society. This necessity also gave rise to the idea of offering a women’s café in Frankfurt refugee homes as part of our work. The aim is to encourage the residents to leave their accommodation on their own initiative, to make contacts and to take advantage of offers from sports and cultural clubs on their own.
The women’s café offers participants the opportunity to exchange ideas, speak German and learn more about education and professional opportunities in Germany. The project is accompanied by two colleagues with many years of experience in migration and refugee work.
The topic of “creative learning” plays a big role in the VbFF in general. Our approach is to complement traditional learning methods with creative ones. For example, our participants from the preparatory courses are already putting on a theatre performance in their fourth year. Especially because of the language barriers, working with the body and music was particularly important to us with TABEA. In this way, all women (whether German-speaking or not) can participate in the project.

• The implementation (April-July 2017)
  Dancing, meeting each other, coming into contact with each other and creating a place of encounter are the focal points of the dance project TABEA(Dance as an Encounter Offer) in the Frankfurt district of Bonames. At the end of April, refugee women from the large-scale accommodation at the old Bonames airfield met with “established” women from Bonames for their first dance time together. Under the direction of the two VbFF dance teachers, different dance styles and forms of movement were tried out every Saturday for two and a half hours. Very different women came to the dance mornings (including from the local gymnastics and sports club), so that a small network developed. The dance meetings were held in rooms in the large accommodation as well as in the community hall of the Protestant community. Through the TABEA project, we also learned and are learning a lot of new things. For example, we had a very concrete idea of the procedure and implementation. However, not always the same women came to the rehearsals as planned, which is why we had to revise our concept again. Sometimes very young women came and the next time mothers who also brought their small children. So for the time being, we could not think of “conventionally rehearsing” a choreography. So we decided against the original idea of a classical performance and turned it into a joint dance festival, exclusively for women, in which everyone could participate.
  The different pieces, from classical piano pieces to oriental music, were chosen together with the women or partly suggested by them.
• The dance festival
  The dance festival took place on 01 July. The anticipation was great and the excitement grew among all participants. The city councillor Rosemarie Heilig (head of the department for women and environment) expressed in her speech how important such projects are in order to grow together as a society. In this context, she also emphasised the important role of women’s initiatives in Frankfurt. The “official” part was followed by dance performances from the Balkans and Afghanistan to oriental belly dancing. The celebration was also used as an opportunity to talk to each other and learn more about each other. The feedback on the TABEA project was so positive that it will be continued.

The German Language Café

Many of our participants are motivated to attend integration courses or are already in training. Nevertheless, the German language remains a great challenge. Some of the women even have a large vocabulary and good grammatical knowledge. However, it is difficult with speaking and listening comprehension due to a lack of language practice. In addition, there are major problems with phonetics despite good written expression. In contrast to large language courses or lessons at vocational schools, the support provided by the VbFF enables us to respond better to individual needs and to adapt the pace to the women’s learning progress. The teachers bring expertise in the field of “DaF – German as a foreign language”. In addition to the many speaking exercises, it is also important to us to convey content in a playful and creative way.

The VbFF has over 35 years of experience in the professional advancement of women, an issue that is very close to our hearts at RAJA. We are happy that with the VbFF we can support an association that has been working towards equal opportunities for women on the labour market for many years and has already accompanied many women on their professional path. We thank the VbFF team for their tireless commitment and their great and important work.