Category: News In English

Cooking Chili and Maqluba by Sylvia Haden   It is 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon. The “intercultural kitchen forum” for adults to meet, exchange thoughts, cook—and of course, to eat begins. Many boxes of food arrive. The first shift of the kitchen crew consists of the initiators of the cooking event themselves: Karl, Jacky and Lulieta from the Hausgemeinschaft LU 15 (Ludwigstraße) and Sylvia from tünews INTERNATIONAL. They slice and grate, cook and bake, decorate and arrange until late into the night. Hummus spread on a flatbread, covered with tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh green chilli peppers and salad leaves—the first dish… Read More

Workshop Shadows in Tübingen from the editorial team   This whole shadow theatre experience in all ways, was about realising one’s own ideas and developing them into a performance finally. After all, the world is your stage. Even for Sabine Effmert and Robert Arnold who conducted this workshop and then performance, from the start of their shadow project till now, or rather from the start of their respective careers in this line of art, till now, it has also all been about realising ideas. Sabine studied figure theatre in Stuttgart and Robert is an actor and director with about 11… Read More

Tuebingen The mood has changed By Sameer Ibrahim   In 2015, Germany, the economically strongest country in Europe, opened its doors benevolently to those fleeing war and misery, bringing hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country. The university city of Tuebingen, like other cities, took in more than a thousand refugees, having a population of only about 90,000. The majority of the fugitives were accommodated in sports halls and reception centres as well as a small number in residential buildings. Due to the large crowds and the limited space in the reception centres, the refugees were initially concentrated very… Read More

Integration Language is the key by Ute Kaiser Naeem Nazari knows from experience what it means to be a refugee. In 1984, when he was two years old, his family fled with him from Afghanistan to Iran. At home, the Soviet-backed government and US-backed resistance groups fought each other. Nazari had no problems at school in Iran and passed the A-Levels. But refugees were not allowed to study there. He really wanted that. Therefore, in 2006 he returned to Afghanistan to study and gave up a job in Iran. In 2007 he started studying German in Herat. This decision should… Read More

Society Reversed roles? By Sameer Ibrahim   As part of my work as a federal volunteer at tünews, one of my duties is to take part in educational seminars organised by the Federal Office for Families and Civil Society Affairs (BAFzA). Only recently did I travel to Bodelshausen, where a BAFzA seminar centre is located. The centre lies about 25 kilometres outside of Tübingen. This seminar lasted five days. On the third day there was a role play on the program. The seminar leader came up with an interesting idea – in a mixture of wit and seriousness. Said, done.… Read More

Review The exchange has inspired me very much. By Pauline Menghini For the last two years, tünews has meant a lot to me, because working in the editorial team has been a big part of my everyday life. From March 2017 I worked as a volunteer, then as a working student in the project and at that time I did not know exactly what to expect. But I should realize that very quickly. First it was my job to supervise the radio show and to accompany writing processes. Then I was allowed to get more involved in the content planning… Read More

Success I took every chance I got by Mohammad Nazir Momand Jawad Taherpor is 32 years old and was born in the region of Herat in Afghanistan. He is the author of the book “You can’t hold me down”. Eight years ago, he came to Germany as a refugee. In a short time, he was able to learn German up to a very high level, so that he was able to enrol in a university very soon. He took advantage of the opportunities he had in the best way possible and built himself an existence while attending university. This young… Read More

Native tongue Arabic classes for children By Oula Mahfouz   Since October 2018 there is an Arabic language class for children, held in Mössingen. 13 Syrian children meet there every Saturday from 9 to 11 a.m. to learn Arabic together. Their teachers are Kamila Alali and Khadija Mahmoud, who gave language classes in Syria as well. This idea came up when a group of Arab women in Mössingen complained about their children forgetting Arabic or not even learning it at all. Kamila Alali took it upon herself  to organize an Arabic class for children. In order to … an adequate… Read More