Social inclusion in Germany-part 1
- Details
- Created on Wednesday, 09 March 2016 13:15
- Written by germany
ERASMUS + Meeting Denmark 05/04/2016 – 09/04/2016
GERMANY: Social inclusion in form of assisted living
The following article serves to describe the social inclusion that derives from the assisted living that is offered by institutions such as the “Nieder-Ramstädter Diakonie”.
People with an either mental or physical handicap are often limited in their possibility to participate independently in the social life of their communities. Unfortunately, there are always people within a society that are narrow-mindedly excluding others from the community. Reasons for this phenomenon are prejudices and intolerance. But luckily, there are people and institutions that are fighting to prevent social exclusion and to support the inclusion of everybody. Their leading principle, precisely that everybody has the same rights, is the basis for the work of those institutions. One of those institutions, namely the “Nieder-Ramstädter Diakonie”, offers different programmes for elderly people, adolescents, as well as disabled people. It consists of several sites of which each has a different emphasis. This consequently leads to the fact that concerned people can experience individual help. One site of the “Nieder-Ramstädter Diakonie” is located in Wörrstadt.
The institution in Wörrstadt offers assisted living and individual help for mentally or physically handicapped people. Concerned people are supported by different programmes and can therefore successfully be integrated into society. Institutions like the “Nieder-Ramstädter Diakonie” concentrate on dissolving hospital structures by introducing normal dwelling forms. This means that the people can live in private flats which are incorporated in houses of the institution, but there are always assistants present in those buildings. It also implies that the assistants can be contacted any time. The “Nieder-Ramstädter Diakonie” in Wörrstadt consists of three such houses, which can be inhabited by a maximum of 36 people. The residents of the houses are assisted to gain more independence in their everyday lives, for instance by learning and repeatedly training aspects of housekeeping.
The majority of the dwellers are even able to work in the “Rheinhessen Werkstatt”, which is a working place for approximately 200 people with a mental or physical disability. Disabled people can gain job-related integration through the numerous options of the “Rheinhessen Werkstatt”, which is attached to the “Nieder-Ramstädter Diakonie”.
In their leisure time the residents of the houses can participate in different sport clubs or choose to join art groups. The people are encouraged to determine their lives themselves. The aim of the institution is to enable concerned people to lead a mostly independent life and to design their daily routine themselves. By choosing different activities out of the diverse spectre of offers of the institution, the programme can be adapted to individual favours and wishes. The support of integration therefore prevents social exclusion and enables the people to successfully participate in society. This social inclusion results in a strengthening of the society and thus contributes to an improvement of the whole community.
By Vivien Gruteser