SchlaU-school offers a comprehensive approach for underage refugees in Germany by addressing their most urgent needs, including special language training, teaching of regular school curricula, legal assistance and social pedagogic and psychological support. Michael has accomplished this by… Read more
SchlaU-school offers a comprehensive approach for underage refugees in Germany by addressing their most urgent needs, including special language training, teaching of regular school curricula, legal assistance and social pedagogic and psychological support. Michael has accomplished this by developing a highly flexible modular class system that honors and fosters individual learning successes and offers performance incentives. Through a formalized school contract which every pupil signs upon entering school, he has fostered commitment from pupils while ingraining essential skills for further success in their careers.
SchlaU has empowered 96 percent of its semi-literate, distressed pupils from all over the world to graduate within two years from German secondary school, which usually takes nine years of schooling. Moreover, SchlaU pupils get better grades on their exams than average German pupils. With these extraordinary results, Michael has proven that his students are willing to integrate and able to accomplish extraordinary achievements at school. Furthermore, SchlaU also helps alumni find internships, apprenticeships and substantive jobs. Through mentorship programs with pro bono business partners, graduates receive crucial vocational training. As a result, none of the 53 SchlaU alumni who started a vocational training have dropped out to date, compared to a drop out rate of one in every fifth native-born German apprentices.
Through its successes, SchlaU serves as a best practice model for building political pressure in the area of refugee rights from the bottom up. By understanding the inherent challenges his target group faces, Michael successfully exerts influence on many political levels. In Munich, he already revolutionized the way refugees are received and treated throughout their asylum process. In the past, it was up to the personal goodwill of the administrative staff in the municipality of to decide whether an underage refugee attended school. Thanks to SchlaU’s steady cooperation and political pressure, today the municipality accepts the right of every underage refugee to attend school and automatically sends them to visit SchlaU upon their arrival into Germany. Michael even managed to find a legal loophole and proved it to be the city's legal duty to offer educational support to his students. As a result, the municipality now pays the salary of one of his teachers.
For students, attending the school is completely free. However, as SchlaU is not yet able to meet the growing demand of young refugees, a long waiting list exists for gaining admission. Michael is working to address this need by training other schools in Munich to adopt aspects of his approach and take young refugees in as part of their student body.
Additionally, Michael works in many political committees and task forces to change the way refugees on the whole are treated in German public. After successfully establishing SchlaU in Munich, Michael wants to expand to Nuremberg, the second only city in Bavaria with a residence for underage asylum seekers. Through this expansion, Michael would cover the whole of Bavaria, Germany's largest state. The next city he plans to expand to is Berlin.
SchlaU has also attracted regular guest visits from people working in the same field both domestically and internationally and is partnering with several citizen organizations (COs) and foundations, universities, and companies like Siemens, KPMG and BMW. Michael plans to involve further business sponsors for his expansion strategy in the near future.
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