Germany

‘We take seriously our commitment to being a socially and environmentally responsible business. Our community and pro bono programme is expanding rapidly, with our offices in Germany sharing their experiences and best practices amongst themselves and with other companies. This has helped, in particular, in the spread and development of our job coaching initiative for 15-17 year olds without apprenticeships. We believe this collaborative approach is also essential as we work to develop an appropriate pro bono programme in a country where there is no real tradition of providing free legal advice to organisations or people in need. Collaboration is also crucial in taking forward our efforts to reduce our impact on the environment.’
Dietmar Knopp, partner responsible for CSR in Germany

In Germany, dedicated teams in each office organise a variety of projects to support their, mainly longstanding, community partners.

Job coaching for young people without apprenticeships

Our offices in Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg all offer job coaching to 15-17 year old adolescents from deprived backgrounds with mostly suboptimal qualifications and therefore a long history of discouraging experiences. Volunteers help with CVs and application letters, and practise interview skills with the students. External evaluation of our Frankfurt project has shown volunteers were able to use their professional skills for the good of young people while expanding their own soft skills. This programme was singled out in December 2006 as part of the Engagiertes Unternehmen (Engaged Business) scheme run by the office of the Prime Minister of the Federal State of Hessen.

Reading in schools

Popular reading partner projects have been established with schools in Berlin and Frankfurt. These are designed to increase language skills in young children who speak German as a second language. Volunteers have also been reading at the Annual Children and Adolescent Book Fair in Frankfurt for three years.

Team challenges

Most of our offices are also involved in regular team challenges with local organisations. Cologne and Frankfurt participated in their cities’ volunteering days, cleaning up a children’s playground (Cologne) and renovating a home for people recovering from drug problems (Frankfurt). Volunteers also serve food and drinks at events for homeless people (Frankfurt). They also organise fun and games afternoons with children and adolescents from socially disadvantaged areas (Hamburg, Frankfurt).

Many of our offices organise regular blood donations for the Red Cross. In 2006/7, employees of other major law firms were invited to join our German offices to have their blood tested for a potential bone marrow donation to increase the survival chances of children suffering from leukaemia. More than 350 people responded to this appeal.

During the 2007 Christmas season, all six German offices simultaneously ran clothing collections for local homeless charities and battered women’s shelters. Through the Wishing Tree project, our offices ensured that orphans (Munich, Düsseldorf), children living in battered women’s shelters (Frankfurt), children suffering from cancer (Cologne) and young refugees (Berlin) all received Christmas presents. Christmas trees decorated with the children’s wish lists were put up in the reception areas of the offices so that volunteers could fulfil the wishes. Since 2005, we have also bought hand-made Christmas cards from our longstanding Hamburg community partner and thus increased the funds available to this private charity.

Our offices regularly sponsor runners for charity runs. In 2007, volunteers from our offices in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt formed a mixed team in the ‘Race for the Cure’ in Frankfurt.

Our Cologne office has provided a considerable piece of pro bono advice to a community foundation. The team around one of the partners settled a very complex estate tax issue for the foundation.

Community Challenge

As part of our first firm-wide community and pro bono initiative in October 2007, our offices in Germany supported a variety of Community Challenges.

Berlin took part in a range of challenges: volunteers sorted clothes in a child care centre, painted walls in a shelter for homeless people, painted rooms in an asylum for unaccompanied refugees, prepared and served food to homeless people, and read books to children in a children’s home.

Volunteers from our Cologne office worked at a homeless shelter, painting and renovating a cafeteria with new tables and chairs. A second team of volunteers laid sidewalk flagstones and replaced the sand in the sand box at a children’s home.

Staff from the Düsseldorf office focused on St Raphael’s children’s home, taking children out ice skating, to a museum and to an indoor playground. Volunteers also provided legal assistance to homeless people at a pro bono brunch. Another group of volunteers organised a ‘beauty afternoon’ for young homeless girls and women enabling them to forget their troubles for a while.

In our Frankfurt office, volunteers accompanied 60 pupils with learning disabilities to a climbing hall to build the children’s self-confidence and provide ateam-building experience. Another group of volunteers accompanied 40 children to a museum in Wiesbaden to help them learn about the different senses. Volunteers also accompanied a group of homeless people on an outdoor rope course and helped organise a thanksgiving party for homeless shelter Lazarus. Office staff helped organise games and creative activities for around 40 children from the Gallus district, a deprived area in Frankfurt. Volunteers also helped a group of girls in an assisted living home with job applications and CVs.

Volunteers in Hamburg helped organise and took part in a children’s party for a charity that works with disadvantaged children, called Hilfspunkt e.V.

In the Munich office, volunteers accompanied immigrants with disabilities to a museum and did some gardening work for a day nursery.

Our offices are continuously exploring new ways of working with their community partners.