Region: Germany, EMEA
Focus Areas: Life Skills Training, Professional Mentoring, Business Partners
Program Name: Street Social Work
Partner: Off Road Kids Foundation

Around 2,000 children run away from home each year in Germany, more than 300 become street children. Unlike the situation in developing countries, the phenomenon of German street children is not a symptom of poverty, but the result of social dysfunction.

Off Road Kids searches for street kids in the major German cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Dortmund and Cologne. It tries to identify them as soon as they start living in streets, before they establish the contacts that lead to drug use, crime, and/or prostitution.

The program does not feed or shelter homeless teens, but instead provides counseling that encourages them to examine their options. For those children and teenagers that cannot return to their families, Off Road Kids maintains children's homes in the town of Bad Dürrheim in southern Germany.




ALCATEL-LUCENT CONTACT:
Regina.Wiechens-Schwake@alcatel-lucent.com

For latest news on the program click here (Download PDF)