Funding catalogue without youth: Broad alliance calls for the inclusion of youth education centres in the special fund

Grafik mit Text Immer mehr Organisationen fordern ein eigenständiges Investitionsprogramm für Jugendbildungsstätten aus dem Bildungs- und Betreuungssondervermögen und Logos der unterstützenden Organisationen

DBJR

The German Federal Youth Council notes with great concern the latest changes to the draft of the State and Municipal Infrastructure Funding Act (LuKIFG). The deletion of the word "in particular" in the previous cabinet decision, which the CDU/CSU and SPD agreed on, has considerably narrowed the funding catalogue. For youth education centres, youth hostels and other non-profit leisure and accommodation facilities, this means that their urgently needed inclusion in the funding is definitively ruled out following this change - even though investments in these facilities as central places of non-formal education, encounters and democratic participation are expressly anchored in the coalition agreement.

This decision is all the more serious as the number of organisations working to strengthen child and youth welfare infrastructures is constantly growing. The Verband deutscher Schullandheime, the Himmlische Herbergen, the Gemeinsame Initiative der Träger politischer Jugendbildung (GEMINI), the NaturFreunde Deutschlands and the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kinder- und Jugenderholungszentren e.V. (Kiez in Deutschland) now support the statement on the design of the special education and care fund in the interests of young people. The German Federal Youth Council, the German Youth Hostel Association, the Working Group of German Educational Centres, the German Sports Youth, the Federal Association for Cultural Child and Youth Education and the Catholic Youth Travel Association had already published the statement at the end of June.

With the newly added organisations, a broad and growing alliance has emerged that calls on the Federal Government and the Bundestag with a clear voice to establish an independent special investment programme for youth education centres, youth hostels and other non-profit leisure and overnight accommodation facilities using funds from the Special Infrastructure Fund. The fact that the coalition has so far ignored this loud and united demand from civil society is incomprehensible and politically negligent.

The short-term change within the coalition has missed a key opportunity: while the areas of housing construction and sport have been added as eligible for funding, child and youth welfare facilities have been left out. The coalition is thus sending out a fatal signal and falling short of its own promises in the coalition agreement to strengthen young people and their infrastructures. Instead of making necessary future investments in education and meeting places possible, young people are once again being cut back - at a time when their spaces for education, engagement and participation urgently need to be secured and expanded. It is now up to the responsible members of the Bundestag in the parliamentary process to reverse these cuts to the central locations for youth work.

Themen: Fachstelle Jugendreisen Fachstelle Jugendreisen