40 Sustainability Incorporated
“I aeginnortt Can Olny be
Achieved Through Language –
ALTANA Is Enabling Us to Help”
German Lessons from the
Very Beginning
“We shouldn’t just watch, we should do
something ourselves.” This was the resolution
that ALTANA’s Management Board
made when refugees flocked to Germany
at the end of the summer in 2015, and
employees in the company, too, started
discussing how integration could be
achieved. Those responsible at ALTANA all
agreed that the key lies in the German
language. Only by learning German can
the refugees communicate with others
in their new country and get a foothold in
the labor market.
Via Aktion Deutschland Hilft e.V.,
an alliance of German aid organizations,
ALTANA
announced it was donating
250,000 euros to help fund a project to
this end. The coalition’s member organizations
were invited to submit proposals
for suitable language
programs. In the
end, Malteser Werke won the day with an
innovative concept called “German lessons
from the very beginning.” They also
scored points with their experiences integrating
refugees. Back in January 2016,
German classes began
for the first
100 students in the Malteser facility in
Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia.
On behalf of the German federal states,
Malteser Werke supervises ten central refugee
accommodation facilities across
the country. The refugees usually live there
for up to six months after being registered,
until they are officially granted asylum
and placed in municipalities. Only
subsequently
is it actually possible for
Anja Müller, Project Manager of the German courses offered by Malteser Werke