Youth and Education Volunteering

Working with young people is one of the most direct ways to feel at home in Germany. You are needed, the reward is immediate, and you build local ties fast. This chapter is a practical guide to youth and education volunteering as a foreigner: the tutoring and mentoring roles where the need is largest, how the German youth-work system (Jugendarbeit, literally “youth work”) is organised, what you can do inside a school, and the safeguarding rules that apply the moment you spend time with minors. It focuses on the how – where to find these roles and what they ask of you. For the wider legal and money side of volunteering (the Ehrenamt framework, insurance, the tax-free Ehrenamtspauschale and the full-time Freiwilligendienste like the FSJ), see our companion chapter on volunteering opportunities, which this chapter builds on rather than repeats.

Tutoring and homework help: where the need is biggest

If you want to be useful quickly, start here. Across Germany there is steady, unglamorous demand for people who will sit with a child and help them understand their schoolwork. The German word is Nachhilfe (extra tuition), and the volunteer version usually happens as Hausaufgabenhilfe (homework help) or Hausaufgabenbetreuung – supervised homework sessions run at schools, public libraries, community centres (often called a Nachbarschaftshaus or Mehrgenerationenhaus), church parishes and family centres. The commitment is typically one or two afternoons a week during term time, and you are helping with whatever the child brings: maths, reading, a worksheet, preparing for a test. You do not need to be a trained teacher. You need patience, reliability and a willingness to explain the same thing three different ways.

A typical session is calmer than it sounds. A handful of children sit with their bags, and you move between them, checking who has understood the assignment, unpicking a word problem, testing vocabulary, or simply keeping a distractible child on task for forty minutes. The value is rarely in advanced knowledge; it is in the undivided attention that a crowded classroom or a busy home cannot always give. Many children who come to homework help are not struggling because they lack ability but because no one at home can help with German-language schoolwork, so a steady, encouraging adult makes a visible difference within weeks.

For a foreigner, this is a surprisingly good fit, and not despite your background but because of it. A large share of the children who need homework help come from families where German is not spoken at home, including many refugee and migrant children. Your own experience of learning German, of not understanding a form, of feeling behind, is something you can offer directly. And here is the part people underestimate: your other languages are an asset. English is on every German school timetable, so an English speaker is immediately valuable for that subject alone. If you speak Arabic, Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian, Farsi or another language spoken by migrant families, you can bridge to a child who is still building their German – a rare and genuinely wanted skill. The overlap with refugee support is large, and if that is where your interest lies, our chapter on refugee and migrant support goes deeper into tutoring in that setting.

Finding a homework-help role is straightforward. Ask at the nearest Grundschule (primary school) or weiterführende Schule (secondary school) whether they run a Hausaufgabenbetreuung and need helpers, ask your local Stadtbibliothek (city library), or approach a community centre or a Caritas, Diakonie, AWO or Deutsches Rotes Kreuz local office, all of which run learning-support programmes. Your municipality’s Freiwilligenagentur (volunteer agency), covered in the framework chapter, keeps a list of current openings and can match you in an afternoon. Expect to be asked for a police certificate before you start with children – that requirement is explained near the end of this chapter, and it is normal, not a red flag.

Reading mentors and one-to-one mentoring

Beyond general homework help sits a set of more structured programmes, each built around a lasting one-to-one relationship between an adult (or an older student) and a child. These are some of the best-organised entry points in the whole field, because the organisations behind them train you, support you and handle the safeguarding paperwork.

The best-known reading programme is MENTOR – Die Leselernhelfer, a nationwide network of local associations whose volunteers meet one child, once a week, over a longer period to build reading confidence. The model is deliberately simple and personal: the same mentor and the same child, week after week, usually during or right after the school day. Many towns also run their own Lesepaten schemes (reading buddies or “reading godparents”), often organised through the local library, a school or a foundation, where volunteers read with children or listen to them read aloud. Reading help is ideal if you want a defined, low-pressure role, and even readers whose German is still improving can do a lot of good simply by giving a child undivided attention and time.

For deeper mentoring, several established organisations recruit volunteers nationwide. Balu und Du pairs university students and other young adults (each called a “Balu”, after the bear in The Jungle Book) with a primary-school-age child (the “Mogli”) for shared free-time activities that build confidence and social skills over about a year. Rock Your Life! connects student mentors with pupils, typically in the years around the transition out of school, to help them find direction toward training or further education. Die Arche (its full name is “Die Arche – Christliches Kinder- und Jugendwerk”), a children’s charity with centres in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in many German cities, offers free meals, homework help and activities, and relies heavily on volunteers; it is a good option if you want a place to show up to rather than a solo pairing. Alongside these national names, many schools and municipalities run their own Bildungspaten or Schülerpaten schemes (“education godparents” / “pupil mentors”), matching a volunteer with a young person for ongoing encouragement and practical guidance.

When you choose among these, think about the shape of commitment you can honestly keep. A mentoring pairing is a promise to one specific child, and the harm of dropping out partway is real, so these programmes rightly ask for a defined term – often a school year – and steady attendance. If your own life in Germany is still in flux, a drop-in setting like a homework club or an Arche centre may suit you better than a one-to-one match until you have found your feet.

Youth work and the Jugendarbeit system

Germany has a large, well-organised world of youth work that runs alongside school and mostly outside it. Understanding its shape helps you find your place in it. At neighbourhood level are the Jugendzentrum and Jugendtreff (youth centre and youth club, sometimes shortened to “Juze” or “JuZ”) – open, staffed spaces where teenagers hang out, get help, and take part in activities. These are run by the municipality or by a welfare organisation, and they welcome volunteers for everything from running a games evening to helping with a music, sports or cooking group.

Above the local centres sit the Verbände – the big membership youth organisations, each with its own character, that together form the backbone of organised youth work. The Deutsche Sportjugend is the youth arm of the German sports movement and reaches millions of young people through sports clubs. The THW-Jugend (the youth wing of the Technisches Hilfswerk, the federal civil-protection agency) and the Jugendfeuerwehr (the youth fire brigade attached to volunteer fire services) teach practical skills, teamwork and emergency response. Church-based youth work is very large: on the Catholic side the BDKJ (Bund der Deutschen Katholischen Jugend) is the umbrella, and there is an equivalent Evangelische Jugend on the Protestant side. The Scouting movement runs through several associations, including the DPSG (Deutsche Pfadfinderschaft Sankt Georg) and the VCP (Verband Christlicher Pfadfinderinnen und Pfadfinder). Most of these organisations run local groups you can simply contact and ask to help with, and you do not need to share the founding faith of a church group to be welcome in many of its open activities – ask.

A distinctive and rewarding role in this world is the Betreuer (group leader or camp counsellor) at a Ferienfreizeit or Jugendfreizeit – a holiday camp or youth trip, often a week or two in the summer. You look after a group of children away from home, run the programme and keep everyone safe. Because this is real responsibility, Germany has a recognised qualification for it: the JuLeiCa, short for Jugendleiter*in-Card (youth-leader card). It is earned through a training course covering group leadership, child development, legal duties, safeguarding and usually a first-aid certificate, and it is widely accepted across organisations as proof that you are prepared to lead young people. If camp and group work appeals to you, ask a local Verband or your municipal youth office (Jugendamt or the Stadtjugendring / Kreisjugendring, the local youth-council body) about the next JuLeiCa course; many are low-cost or free and open to newcomers. If your interest is specifically sport, coaching a youth team at a local club is one of the easiest ways in – our chapter on joining sports clubs explains how the Verein (club) system works. And if you would rather commit full-time for a year, the Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (FSJ) can be done in schools and youth work; the framework chapter covers how the FSJ and the other Freiwilligendienste work.

Volunteering inside schools and formal education

Schools themselves are open to help, though the route in is often quieter than people expect. Almost every German school has a Förderverein – a registered support association of parents and other members that raises money and organises help for the school, funding things the state budget does not cover. Joining or supporting the Förderverein is one of the most welcome contributions you can make, and you do not need to have a child at the school to join. It is also a gentle first step for a newcomer, because much of the work is organisational – events, small projects, fundraising – rather than standing in front of a class.

It helps to understand a little about how German schools are structured before you approach one – the split between school types, the role of the Bundesländer in setting education policy, and where all-day schooling fits; our chapter on primary and secondary education lays that out, and it will make your first conversation with a Schulleitung (head teacher) or Förderverein far easier. Inside the school day and in the growing number of Ganztagsschulen (all-day schools), volunteers help with reading, run the school library, support homework clubs, and act as Schülerpaten or Bildungspaten mentoring individual pupils, as described earlier. A particularly valuable strand is helping young people cross from school into work and training. JOBLINGE, a national initiative run as a charitable public-private venture, supports disadvantaged young people and young adults toward apprenticeships and jobs, and it depends on volunteer mentors who accompany a young person through that stretch – a strong fit if you have professional experience to share and want mentoring with a clear goal. Many regions also run their own Ausbildungspaten or Berufseinstiegsbegleitung-style mentoring, matching an adult with a teenager approaching the end of school.

If your background is technical, digital and science volunteering is expanding fast. The Hacker School, for example, brings volunteers from tech and IT into short, hands-on coding courses for children and teenagers, so working developers can teach a weekend or an evening without a long-term commitment. Other coding clubs, maker spaces, robotics groups and school science projects look for people who can make these subjects come alive, and here your professional skills matter more than your German. Universities, meanwhile, run buddy and mentoring programmes that pair local volunteers with international students arriving in Germany – a natural role if you remember arriving yourself. When you offer a school or programme a specific skill, be concrete about what you can give and how often; a clear, modest offer (“I can help with English reading on Tuesdays”) is far easier to place than an open-ended one.

Safeguarding: the rules for working with minors

Anyone volunteering with young people in Germany runs into child-protection (Kinderschutz) rules early, and it helps to expect them rather than be surprised. They exist to protect children, and being asked to meet them is a sign that an organisation takes its responsibility seriously – it is never a comment on you personally.

The central document is the erweitertes Führungszeugnis, the enhanced police certificate. A normal Führungszeugnis is a standard criminal-record extract; the enhanced version additionally shows certain offences relevant to work with children and young people, and organisations that engage volunteers in regular contact with minors are generally required to check it. You apply for it in person at your local Bürgeramt or Einwohnermeldeamt (the citizens’ or residents’ registration office), and the organisation you will volunteer with normally gives you a written confirmation that the volunteer role qualifies, which can reduce or waive the fee. You show the certificate to the organisation; you do not usually hand it over to keep. It takes a couple of weeks to arrive, so ask about it early rather than treating it as a last-minute formality. This is a genuine gate for youth work, and the framework chapter on volunteering opportunities covers the paperwork side in more general terms.

Beyond the certificate, most reputable organisations will ask you to take part in some form of Kinderschutz briefing or safeguarding training and to sign their code of conduct (often a Selbstverpflichtungserklärung, a self-commitment declaration). These set out sensible boundaries: how to be alone with a child appropriately or avoid it, how to handle physical contact, photos and social-media contact, and what to do if a child discloses something worrying or you notice signs of harm. None of this is meant to make you anxious. The underlying norms are straightforward – be transparent, keep to agreed settings and times, involve the organisation when something feels wrong – and following them protects you as much as the child. The other quiet expectation across all youth work is reliability. Children notice when an adult stops showing up, and consistency is often the most valuable thing you bring, so promise only what you can keep.

How to get started

The simplest first move is to pick one route from this chapter and make one contact. Email or drop in on the nearest school and ask about its Förderverein or homework club, contact a mentoring organisation such as MENTOR – Die Leselernhelfer, Balu und Du, Rock Your Life!, Die Arche or JOBLINGE, or go straight to your municipal Freiwilligenagentur (volunteer agency) and tell them you want to work with children or in education. The volunteer agency is the shortcut: it knows the current openings, it can match your language skills and your available afternoons, and it will tell you exactly which safeguarding steps a given role needs. The framework chapter explains how to find and use your local agency.

On language: do not let uncertain German hold you back. Tutoring and homework help work in German, but they also work in English and in your first language, and for migrant children another language is often the whole point. Youth-work settings are forgiving places to practise German while you help, and if the language is your main worry, our chapter on overcoming German language barriers has practical advice. Match your commitment to your life honestly – a one-to-one mentoring pairing asks for months of steady presence, a holiday camp asks for an intense week and a JuLeiCa course beforehand, and a drop-in homework club asks only for a reliable afternoon. There is a shape that fits almost anyone.

Give it time and it gives back more than you put in. You will see a child read a sentence they could not read last month, you will learn how Germany actually works from the inside, and you will end up with a network of colleagues, parents and neighbours that no amount of paperwork could buy. Youth and education volunteering is one of the fastest routes from living in Germany to belonging in it. For the bigger picture of what volunteering here can teach a newcomer, our chapter on learning culture through volunteering is a good next read. Start with one afternoon, and let it grow from there.