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| Kakoschke, his partner, left, and roommate Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson/NPR |
It's not easy to feel good about the world and the direction we're all headed in, but a story like this does give one hope. So far, 780 Germans have signed up to host refugees with Jonas Kakoschke and Mareike Geiling's Refugees Welcome (see original post below). That may not sound like a lot, given the thousands of immigrants needing help, but other EU countries now want in on that action, and apparently, thousands of Icelanders have offered accommodations. In Munich, the police have been flooded with donations for refugees: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/berlin-group-behind-airbnb-for-refugees-overwhelmed-by-offers-of-help?CMP=ema_565#comments
According to a 2014 UN Global Trends report, there have never been as many refugees in the world as there are now. And, as always and everywhere, not everyone is happy to see them. It's sad yet understandable. People worry about running low on resources, and throughout history, humans have evinced an inherent fear and/or distrust of strangers. Fortunately for some of the displaced landing in Germany, there is at least one person working against that trend. Jonas Kakoschke created a kind of
nonprofit Airbnb for immigrants in which he tries to match individuals who have a spare room with compatible applicants. He himself has hosted a refugee for the past six months and says that, despite the cultural differences, they get along well (story, video, link to audio): http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-13/not-airbnb-germans-open-their-doors-and-their-wallets-share-apartments-immigrants
According to a 2014 UN Global Trends report, there have never been as many refugees in the world as there are now. And, as always and everywhere, not everyone is happy to see them. It's sad yet understandable. People worry about running low on resources, and throughout history, humans have evinced an inherent fear and/or distrust of strangers. Fortunately for some of the displaced landing in Germany, there is at least one person working against that trend. Jonas Kakoschke created a kind of
nonprofit Airbnb for immigrants in which he tries to match individuals who have a spare room with compatible applicants. He himself has hosted a refugee for the past six months and says that, despite the cultural differences, they get along well (story, video, link to audio): http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-13/not-airbnb-germans-open-their-doors-and-their-wallets-share-apartments-immigrants
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