Kiron and help alliance open study center in Berlin

A meeting place and study center for refugee students / Lufthansa help students achieve social and cultural Integration

Education is one of the key factors for the successful and long-term integration of people of non-German origin. This is why help alliance, the relief organization of the Lufthansa Group, gives targeted support to projects in Germany with this as their focus.

Today, in cooperation with the education platform Kiron Open Higher Education, the study center for refugees opened its doors in Berlin’s “Spreewerkstätten” cultural center. The meeting place and study center was financed by the help alliance. The study center complements Kiron’s online educational offerings and is embedded in the concept of the Migration Hub Berlin (the global network for asylum, migration, and refugee cooperation).

In addition, mentors from among the Lufthansa Group’s staff assist the students and so help contribute to their social and cultural integration.

Joachim Steinbach, Managing Director of help alliance, says: “With the opening of the study center and the support of mentors from the Lufthansa Group, help alliance, together with Kiron, is helping to support refugees in Berlin, even beyond the options offered online. Because, besides learning the material covered by a course of studies, education consists above all of personal encounters, of talking to other people. Only here do we have a chance to build bridges and become familiar with the society we are in so that we can become part of it.”

Vincent Zimmer, Kiron Co-Founder, added: “We are very pleased that, with the assistance of help alliance, we are opening a new study center in the Migration Hub. By doing so, we are offering our Berlin students a space for encounters, exchanges and education. In particular, the learning mentors of the Lufthansa Group strengthen intercultural and professional competences on both sides. Such offline offers are important so that our students can achieve successful learning results, but also have a social point of contact. Strong partners such as help alliance allow Kiron to offer high-quality complementary services in as many locations as possible.”