Bridge Builders for Participation
Ausweg Rhein-Neckar helps people affected by poverty and social exclusion develop their employability. A planned ESF Plus project starts not with job-application training but with belonging, self-efficacy, and responsibility.
Since February 2025, the association Ausweg Rhein-Neckar has been running Treffpunkt Kupfer in Mannheim’s Neckarstadt-West district. This low-threshold place for encounter and support is aimed especially at people affected by poverty and social exclusion. It combines open counseling without an appointment, social contact, political and civic participation, volunteering, and mobile outreach in public spaces. A distinctive feature is its peer-based approach: the association was founded in part by people with first-hand experience of poverty, and at the drop-in center, too, those who come seeking help are meant to become co-creators and take on responsibility over time.
The planned ESF Plus project “Brücken bauen – klassismussensible Wege in Teilhabe und Arbeit” (Building Bridges – Classism-Sensitive Pathways into Participation and Work) is set to develop this model further, with a clear focus on employability. The underlying hypothesis is that for people facing multiple social burdens, integration into the labor market does not begin with job-application training. Instead, it first requires a sense of belonging, self-efficacy, the assumption of responsibility, and low-threshold spaces in which to try things out. The project plans to provide intensive support to 60 participants and to generate around 2,000 low-threshold contacts. At the same time, a systematic impact model for the center will be developed for the first time.
The Röchling Foundation is supporting Ausweg Rhein-Neckar with the required 20 percent co-funding, enabling the association to receive public ESF funding covering the remaining 80 percent.Die Röchling Stiftung unterstützt Ausweg Rhein-Neckar mit der erforderlichen 20-prozentigen Kofinanzierung, damit der Verein die öffentliche ESF-Förderung von 80 Prozent erhalten kann.
