If funding is cut: Buchkinder Leipzig e. V. launches a crowdfunding campaign

Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar: Zum deutschen Artikel.

If you’re from Leipzig and visit the Kolumba Museum in Cologne, you might well find a book by the Buchkinder Leipzig on display alongside a Warhol in one of the exhibitions. Yes, Kolumba collects the works of the Buchkinder and lists the association, under ‘Artists’, as ‘monographic focal points that particularly define Kolumba’. The works produced by Buchkinder Leipzig e. V. are recognised as artistically valuable, at least by the Art Museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne.

However, the fact that the books and some pictures are exhibited and collected in Cologne does little to help the association in Leipzig; the funding it has received from the Youth Welfare Office for the past 14 years has been severely cut. There is a shortfall of around 100,000 euros needed to finance its ongoing work.

What are these ‘Buchkinder’?

I met with the managing directors, Birgit Schulze Wehninck and Sven Riemer, on site and spoke to them about the association, its projects and the current challenges. Publishing the entire conversation here would go far beyond the scope of this article, so we’ll make do with a summary.

I asked Birgit what the association does. Her answer was: “What characterises the association’s work is that we help children find their own voice, or rather, we support them as they express themselves through text and images. We support them in turning this into a book so that they can present their work at readings, whether on a small or large scale, and thus gain their first experience of putting their own ideas to the test. In other words, presenting themselves in public, in front of an audience, which we see as an important first step and test of participation.”

Buchkinder Leipzig e. V. was founded in 2001 and is therefore celebrating its 25th anniversary this year; during this time, 1,000 different book titles have been produced. Just under 16,000 books have been bound by hand. Children ranging from nursery age to 18 become authors, illustrators, editors and bookbinders.

The children also put their smartphones aside when they are working on their books, and for many, this work also serves as their introduction to the medium of the book – in other words, to reading. Sven commented: “First of all, one can of course ask the question again: through what means do we gain access to the world in the first place; how do we explore the world, and through which abilities? And the diversity of sensory perception that human beings possess is a very complex and very important field. In the digital world, the process is often structured in such a way that one simply consumes content. This creates the passivity that is noted in all educational reports. We manage to get the children to concentrate for a longer period of time – two and a half hours. That’s quite an achievement in itself, because many schools struggle with the fact that pupils’ ability to concentrate is waning. In that respect, we actually tap into the children’s own enthusiasm, create spaces, and they go in there without even a flicker of interest in their mobile phones. They remain fully focused right until the end, and that is, of course, a quality in itself.”

Around 200 children attend the courses each week, not only at the main centre in Lindenau, but also in the east of Leipzig and at courses run in partnership with educational institutions such as schools, after-school clubs and nurseries.

Incidentally, Buchkinder have also won a host of awards, including the German Publishing Prize five times. They have received the prize four times for outstanding overall publishing work and once as ambassadors for “So geht sächsisch”.

Buchkinder Leipzig e. V. is an established educational provider and enjoys a high level of recognition.

So what’s going on now?

As described in the introduction, funding has been drastically cut and the staffing ratio has been halved. The association is therefore expected to continue its work to the same high standard with half the number of staff. It should be noted here that, in addition to permanent staff, interns and working students, a large proportion of the work is carried out by volunteers. The staffing levels already fall short of covering everything.

Speaking about what this means for staff, Sven said: “It’s simply a very uncertain situation. We’re naturally trying to retain the people who are currently on board for the time being, because the situation hasn’t been fully resolved yet. That means we’re trying to carry on with our work. We also see this as an encroachment on our editorial autonomy, because we define a standard based on our work as to what structure should be in place for this to function. If someone then says: ‘That’s all very well, what you’re doing, but it can also be done with half the staff’, then that’s a major change. We would then be moving towards frontal teaching, which would not be in keeping with our work at all and would not work.”

The cut in funding can, of course, be attributed to the long-standing financial crisis facing the City of Leipzig; however, cuts in the education sector – which particularly affect children and young people – should be a last resort. The association has lodged an appeal against the cuts; the outcome is still pending and will take some time.

Call for crowdfunding

To ensure the association can continue its work over the coming months, 100,000 euros are needed. The association is therefore launching a crowdfunding campaign and asking for donations.

You can find more details here
.

Please help to safeguard this unique project – for our children and young people, and of course for our ‘City of Books’, Leipzig.