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4.2.4.1.1 ReachOut/Ariba (Berlin) and LOBBI (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)
Having described the basic concept and main tasks/goals of the CIVITAS projects active in hate crime assistance, we will now turn to the implementation and practice of two selected organizations. The following accounts will focus on organizations that offer services directly to the victims:
ReachOut/Ariba, located in Berlin-Kreuzberg, one of the most multicultural areas within the German capital, defines itself as a counseling and educational center that counters right-wing extremism, racism and anti-Semitism. The association was founded in 2001 with the specific purpose of supporting victims of racist/xenophobic crimes and right-wing hate crimes. It serves the whole Berlin region, totaling approximately 3.7 million inhabitants. The ReachOut team—five men and women (two with a migration background)—consists of experienced political activists who have been involved in anti-racist campaigns and inter-cultural and feminist education since the 1980s. Three of its staff members set up the first anti-racist telephone hotline in Germany in 1988 and founded one of the first independent anti-racist initiatives in West-Berlin. Several volunteers and interns support this organization’s activities at any given time.
LOBBI is an association that also supports victims of right-wing hate crimes. Established solely for assisting victims of hate crime, LOBBI is active in the federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and serves a population of 1.7 million people located in a predominantly rural area of 23,000 km2. Some of the NGO’s founding members had many years experience in psycho-social counseling before joining the organization; others had worked in independent youth centers and had been active in training and civic education programs with a particular focus on anti-Fascist campaigns. Between 2001 and 2007, LOBBI had three local offices in the cities Neubrandenburg, Rostock und Schwerin with a staff of six field workers in total. Due to cuts in government funding, LOBBI had to close its regional office in Schwerin in 2007. Since then, the association employs four field workers who are supported by volunteers, interns and temporary staff.
The core activities of ReachOut and LOBBI consist of general counseling and support services for victims of right-wing hate crimes. Both NGOs also offer services to family members and friends of the victim, as well as witnesses of attacks who are sometimes also traumatized by incidents and/or need legal advice. Both organizations offer interpretation services and have created outreach pamphlets and handouts, informing victims and the public about their work in various languages.
Directing all their support activities to those affected by hate crime, they characterize their counseling activities in terms of solidarity with the victims.
Their approach is client-centered, often applying methods of systemic consultation and coaching. The staff usually begins the consultation process with an open interview, which gives the victim the opportunity to talk in detail about the attack they experienced and the impact it had on their lives in a safe environment. The counseling teams use this first interview to get an overview of the circumstances surrounding the incident and the immediate needs of the victim. To identify possible support and intervention strategies, the victim’s depiction of the incident is particularly important, as is an assessment of her/his social environment, living conditions, individual psycho-social situation and resources. Based on the victim’s needs, the subsequent steps and consultation processes vary. In cases where the victims are afraid of further harassment and do not want to go public or take legal steps, the support activities are mainly focused on providing emotional support and contacts to health and therapeutic services. Sometimes it is necessary to move the person to a more stable and safe environment. While some consultations lead to no additional support from staff members, other consultation processes, especially those involving local interventions and guidance through legal and court proceedings, can take several years.
Victims Groups Served
Despite the different environments in which they operate, both ReachOut and LOBBI serve similar victim groups. In 2006 ReachOut and LOBBI registered 171 and 103 incidents of hate crimes respectively; for 2007 the numbers were 122 and 78. While not all of the victims affected could be ascertained, roughly two thirds were successfully contacted and offered support services. In 2007 ReachOut reported about 100 consultation cases; LOBBI contacted and assisted about 140 persons in the same year—one third of them relatives, family members and witnesses.
In both regions, males who are either adolescents or young adults make up the groups most affected by right-wing hate crimes or other related crimes; women are more often involved in the consultation process as relatives of the victims or witnesses. In Berlin the largest group ReachOut serves are refugees, migrants or non-ethnic Germans; the second largest group are young people in alternative youth scenes (punks, skaters etc.) and left-wing political activists who get attacked by groups of skinheads or neo-Nazis for political reasons. The same victim groups account for most consultation cases in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where more hate crimes tend to be committed by perpetrators with a clear right-wing extremist ideology and a background in right-wing organizations, especially in rural areas. Even though skinhead groups and right-wing violence are also a constant threat in the urban context of Berlin (particularly in the inner-city areas of former East Berlin and the western district of Neukölln), a large number of cases reported to ReachOut are not linked to organized forms of right-wing extremism but rather to individuals with strong racist prejudices, representing all age groups, often neighbors or other individuals the victim knows.
When asked about other potential target and victim groups, both NGOs stated that they have difficulties reaching out to socially excluded groups such as the homeless or disabled people that often are attacked because by right-wing offenders consider them to be »freeloaders« or »parasites.« Jewish people, another group affected by hate crimes, rarely contact these organizations, because they tend to not report these incidents to organizations outside their community. ReachOut also mentioned that members of the Vietnamese community have faced recurrent harassment in the eastern parts of Berlin, but they are usually very cautious to report experiences of racist attacks and incidents. The same is true for Turkish or Arabic women, who might often be too ashamed to contact a professional counseling service. In Berlin homosexual individuals have their own emergency hotlines and organizations they can turn to, but not much is known about the situation of the LGBT community and the problem of homophobic hate crimes in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Utilization of Services
According to our interview partners, the majority of people who contact them have already filed charges with the police. LOBBI stated that about 90 percent of their clients want to take legal steps against their perpetrators and »the ones who do not trust the law enforcement agencies usually do not want to work with us [LOBBI] in the first place.« (3) ReachOut emphasized that many incidents they learn of do not constitute litigable criminal offenses, and even if they do, the counselors still notice a widespread reluctance to cooperate with the police due to negative experiences in the past or fears of not being taken seriously. Many anti-Fascist and left-wing activists tend only to file police reports in cases of severe bodily injuries. Nevertheless, the organizations interviewed named the following as the most utilized services by victims of hate crimes: legal advice and guidance, help finding a lawyer, an explanation of joint action and how it can be used, the preparation of victims and witnesses for police and court hearings as well as the monitoring of trials.
The second core activity with respect to individual victims is giving psycho-social support on various levels ranging from crisis intervention to assistance with health, family and financial problems. Psychological services tend to be more utilized by older people and people with a migration background, since according to our interview partners, younger left-wing activists show a certain reluctance to perceive themselves as victims in need of professional assistance and therapy. In many cases, close cooperation with other NGOs, complementary counseling services and public institutions is crucial. This makes the work of a victim support organization in an urban context much easier due to shorter distances and a comparably well-established network of supportive actors and resources. ReachOut, for example, can transfer victims of hate crimes who are in need of therapy and long-term psycho-social counseling to a team of specialized psychologists working for the same association (Ariba) in the same office building. In cases of discrimination or related legal problems (for example, residence permits), there are a number of specialized NGOs and professionals available in the city to which clients can be referred. Examples of such professionals include the Anti-discrimination Office in Berlin or counseling services for refugees run by church groups or welfare organizations.
In contrast, these services and resources are rather limited in cities like Rostock, Neubrandenburg or even smaller places. According to our interview partner from LOBBI, »there is a lack of almost everything in the region, ranging from psychological services and good lawyers to local contact points and partners.« These contacts are direly needed to support hate crime victims who often live in refugee camps, small towns and villages. This is a challenge for all CIVITAS projects working in rather large, sparsely populated, and often socially and economically underdeveloped areas. Much more than their counterparts located in metropolitan regions, these organizations rely on their outreach and support activities for hate crime victims, informal groups and committed individuals such as anti-Fascist activists, priests or social workers.
Outreach Activities
Another major difference in many rural settings is the need for outreach activities. The staff members of LOBBI and other CIVITAS projects in states with a larger area have to be very mobile. As our interview partner explains:
»In only 20 to 30 percent of cases do we learn about the attacks from the victims themselves who contact us directly; the rest of the cases are either the result of our own research (media evaluation) and outreach activities, or we get the information from various local cooperation partners. These groups (anti-Fascist groups, institutions dealing with refugees, etc.) are our most important sources and intermediaries because, in a rural area such as ours, we cannot make LOBBI so well-known that every potential victim has our address and phone number.« (4)
Active consultation and travel to where the victims live is an essential and time consuming aspect of their daily work. Once the field workers get to the destination and start investigating and discussing right-wing violence with various local actors, they often learn about other hate crimes that had not been made public before. Similarly, ReachOut actively networks on the local level (they have cooperated with about 40 different initiatives and organizations, many of them anti-Fascist groups in the eastern districts of the city), but, in contrast to LOBBI, their assistance services have become much better known. However, they also tried out various outreach approaches in the past, such as offering regular office hours in youth centers or local community institutions, and they have visited clients in their homes. By organizing trainings for individuals active in adult and youth education and workshops in schools and other institutions on a regular basis, they are well connected to community actors such as teachers and social workers who can pass on information about their services. Furthermore, they have established good contacts to a number of local journalists who help with their media coverage and advertise their activities on behalf of hate crimes victims. Today most people seeking help directly contact them by phone and come to their local office for counseling services.
3. Interview with LOBBI East.
4. Interview with LOBBI East.
(OPP)
