Sarah Diehl

How did you get involved with ArrivalAid ?

That was quite a long time ago. I came to ArrivalAid through the “Gute Tat” foundation. But originally not for Anhörung and integration support, at that time there was only Anhörungsbegleitung . I originally joined to organize events, fundraisers and things like that. We did that, just once. It didn't bring in very many donations. But organizing it was still a lot of fun. That was the Sportcheck run in 2017. The idea was actually that you would donate for every meter you ran, but in the end that didn't work out so well. But it was very funny.

After that I stuck with it and got into the Anhörungsbegleitung track. I have also done integration support once. At the moment I'm relatively busy with work and studies and then preparing for the Anhörung is more practical.

How long have you been involved with ArrivalAid ?

Since around March 2017.

How many hours a week do you volunteer?

That always depends. Sometimes there are 2 to 3 Anhörung per week, sometimes nothing at all for 3 to 4 weeks. I would say on average 3 to 4 hours per week.

Why are you involved with ArrivalAid ?

I think the work is very important. I work in administration and I know that it is incredibly difficult to understand all the applications and situations. And it's even more difficult for people with a refugee background who come from a completely different social and cultural environment and have no understanding at all of how everything works here and why. This entire process will determine your future and that is why it is so important to prepare you well for it.

Do you have an experience that you particularly remember from your volunteer work at ArrivalAid ?

I don't know a specific experience right now. But I'm always very happy when I get feedback like: Yes, it turned out well. I have received residence status. That always makes me very happy. Sometimes it's the case that you never hear from people again.

Would you recommend that others volunteer?

In any case. I also tried to acquire people. However, this is of course a pretty sensitive topic with the escape stories and everything legal that goes with them. That's why I haven't managed to infect people with my enthusiasm yet, but maybe at some point.

Overall, I think it's very important to get involved. Before that I did another voluntary job and I was just in Paraguay for six months and did something like a voluntary job for UNESCO. And so I just think that’s very important.

What does your involvement with ArrivalAid bring you on a personal level?

I find it very exciting to get to know people with different cultural backgrounds and find out more about how their lives went. You learn quite a lot, even apart from the actual escape story, about life, where people come from, what it's like there. I find that very exciting. You also get to know a lot of nice people because most of the other volunteers are also very nice. Of course there are always exceptions, but so far I haven't had any bad experiences.

Would you like to say something else?

What I find very exciting is how ArrivalAid has developed. At the beginning it was a very small project and now it's almost like an NGO, with a relatively large number of employees and so on. Respect what has become of it all.

And of course I'm always happy when there are more people who want to get involved.