Interview with BTU Alumna Julia Kaiser (Soziale Arbeit)

Julia volunteered in Cottbus for many years and started working in social projects as a career changer in 2015. From 2018 she studied social work and successfully graduated in 2022. She currently works at the Paritätischer Landesverband Brandenburg e.V. in the office of the volunteer agency Cottbus and supports there people who are committed to integration, tolerance, environment, children, sports and exercise. Perhaps the interview will also motivate many BTU alumni to get involved in local volunteer work. Julia is your contact there.

Hello Julia, how did you come to study social work part-time and what advice would you give to other people in the field who are considering taking a similar step?
My first two degrees, Bachelor's and Master's, were science-based. Ultimately, however, I was looking for a profession that focused more on the "people" component. I have been interested in the aspect of the eco-system for a long time, and of course the human factor cannot be left out. The so-called refugee crisis in 2015 gave me the opportunity to gain a foothold in the social sector. As a caregiver for unaccompanied, underage refugees, I was able to contribute many of my skills, above all my approach and support for the resources that each individual person has, and I certainly learned a lot of new things! Sustainability also plays a big role in working with people. Relationship work takes time, trust grows slowly. Encouraging and strengthening the respective person towards more independence in many situations in life is more sustainable than solving problems quickly by simply doing it yourself as a caregiver. My superiors advised me, if I can imagine a longer professional realization in the area, to still attach the study of the social work. Qualitative work is only possible with a certain level of expertise. If they hadn't encouraged me and seen something in me, I don't know if I would have started my third degree otherwise. I can advise anyone who is also considering a career change to give it a try and to back up the new path with professionalism. I liked the third degree very much. It is easier to learn with some study experience and especially with the practical reference through work. I don't want to hide the fact that it takes extreme self-organization to juggle full-time studies, work and the rest of your life, but in the end there are so many interfaces that it's a real win-win situation!

How do the skills you learned and the knowledge you gained during your studies help you in your work?
What I learned about social processes, methods of individual counseling, and group processes helps me a lot in my work as a volunteer coordinator and volunteer counselor at the volunteer agency. The study program also helped me a lot to understand social work not only as a full-time expression of the helper syndrome, but also as a profession that is very diverse in terms of subject matter and content. The exchange with other students and the lecturers helped me to find and develop my own professional attitude. Topics such as professional closeness and distance in a professional context and enabling empowerment through one's own restraint and promotion of the strengths of the other person and the development of intercultural skills are among the aspects that I can put to good use in my daily work.

What exactly do you do at the volunteer agency and how can one imagine your daily work?
Our credo is to promote civic engagement in Cottbus. This is very broad and is ultimately as diverse as the people and their issues are. One component is the volunteer advisory service. Here, people come who would like to get involved in Cottbus and are looking for a place to work, but we also advise social institutions that are looking for helping hands. This can be, for example, a retirement home that is looking for someone to help out in the afternoon, or the Lesefuchs e.V., which is looking for people who enjoy reading to children in the hospital, for example, or the Fahrrad-Freundinnen, which is still looking for women who want to help migrants learn to ride a bike. We are also happy to support people who have their own ideas for social coexistence and are still looking for fellow campaigners, rooms, financing and the like. We attach great importance to networking and are active in a wide variety of working groups, for example on the topic of family support, community work in the district or planning the Neighborhood Day, the next citizens' festival and much more. We also have our own projects, such as the desired grandparent service or the senior trainers. In recent years, we have built up the Sprechcafés to promote intercultural encounters in Cottbus. Since this year, I have been working with volunteer instructors to set up sports and exercise programs for seniors, especially in the outlying districts of Cottbus. Currently, we are of course very busy with the Ukraine aid, in the crisis, the volunteers are usually immediately on the spot and do a lot! It is important to us that volunteers find a good framework, that they are not exploited, that there are contact persons, that meaningful activities can be carried out in a way that suits the person and that an individual culture of recognition is lived. Our work is very dynamic, is based a lot on networking and is determined by the issues that people bring with them.

You have lived in Cottbus since 2011 and are involved in many places in the city. What makes Cottbus so interesting and livable for you?
When I came to Cottbus in 2011, my plan was to do my master's degree and then leave. Thank goodness nothing came of that. I have spent time in many places in the world and I find Cottbus to be a place and people who are not perfect and do not try to be. Many things are still possible here. I'm more of a doer and think it's great that there are so many issues to tackle here. Cottbus is big enough to find four others who are just as enthusiastic and want to tackle and small enough to know each other well, to meet again and to be able to identify with the city. Not everything runs smoothly here, but that would be too boring for me. The rough edges give Cottbus a face. My two big areas of involvement were supporting the activities around February 15 at Cottbus Nazifrei! and founding the Cottbus Kost-Nix-Laden. I find it impressive to see how you can really make a difference with your own commitment. I learned a lot about Cottbus, the people who live here and about myself!

The BTU campus in Sachsendorf is very small and mainly characterized by students of social work and instrumental and vocal pedagogy. What were the advantages and perhaps also the disadvantages of such a family environment in your studies and what would you say to prospective students who might be skeptical about studying at such a small campus?
That is always a question of perspective! I studied my first bachelor's degree at the University of Applied Sciences in Eberswalde, whereas the campus in Sachsendorf seems big! I love the smaller campuses! Granted they may seem "off the beaten path" and don't have much in common with the images of large, city-like campuses we know from Hollywood movies, but again, the motto is: lonely in a city of millions. The big advantage is simply that you are not a number here, but the teachers know you by name sooner or later. You soon have an overview of who actually belongs to your semester and who is a year above you that you can ask for practice exams from the previous year. I also find it nice not to live on campus, to get out of the study bubble and at best to get in contact with local people. The bike ride through Cottbus to Sachsendorf always gave me time to switch off after the lecture and on the way to the exam I was awake and fit. In case of doubt, I would always opt for the smaller structure again, as I am convinced that I can be catered to more individually here instead of a rather rigid construct designed for quantity. Of course, there are also disadvantages, such as a smaller selection of study groups, excursions or menus in the cafeteria. Each person probably has to decide what is more important to him or her.