English – Elena Bleß-Stiftung

Tätigkeitsbericht 2019

Annette Bleß — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 11:14:48 +0000

Haltern am See, 16th February 2020. After its fifth annual report the Elena Bless Foundation can by now look back at more than 100 work placements abroad. Solely in the year 2019 work placements abroad of 32 pupils were supported. In the year 2019 the sum of scholarships amounted to 10216 euros. Moreover, exchange projects of the twin schools were again supported in the amount of 5219.42 euros. For further information an abstract of the progress and the financial report 2019 is available for download (https://elena-bless-stiftung.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kurzfassung-Tätigkeitsbericht-Elena-Bleß-Stiftung-2019. pdf).

Lille 2019-1

Annette Bleß — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 10:02:35 +0000

Lille, 16^th December 2019. In her report on her work placement Emily enthusiastically tells about her diversified daily routine in the social centre in the northern French city of Lille. As “in Germany there are no institutions comparable to a French social centre”, Emily was very curious to get to know how such a centre works. “Every day in the social centre looked different to me”. In her four-weeks work placement she took care of the online appearance of the centre in the office, for example, or she prepared a language course with a teacher, which was to take place in the afternoon. In conclusion, Emily writes, “as no day looked like the other, I learned a surprising number of things. And there is something else I definitely can assert about myself, namely that I know at first hand how a French social centre works: a unique system based on charity”.

Malta 2019-1

Annette Bleß — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 10:00:17 +0000

B’Kara (Malta), 14th December 2019. In her two-weeks work placement in the Adidas store in Malta Renée performed all the usual tasks of a shop assistant for sports and leisure wear: advising customers, fetching shoes of suitable sizes, cleaning up and folding of clothes, etc. As in Malta the English language is spoken as second language, Renée could communicate without difficulty with the other employees and the customers in this language. Thus in her report she comes to the conclusion, “Thereby my language has improved and I have learned some technical terms. I also liked the work very much and it was great fun.”

Exeter 2019-1

Annette Bleß — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:10:14 +0000

Exeter, 24th November 2019. Frédéric looks back very happily at his three-weeks work placement in the biggest boulder hall in the south west of England. At this exciting location of his work placement with its 7 to 15 metres high climbing walls Frédéric was always very busy. Among others, his tasks included supporting the trainers’ team, assisting with climbing, serving cold and hot drinks, keeping tidy the area of the café, and refilling dishes and food supplies regularly. Frédéric reports that by this work placement he got valuable insights into working life and found new friends. Along the way, he also learned speaking English more fluently. Moreover, in his free time he could get to know the neighbourhood with his very nice host family.

Roost-Warendin 2019-1

Annette Bleß — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 07:56:10 +0000

Roost-Warendin, 9th November 2019. In the nicely illustrated report on her work placement Jana tells about her experiences at the Ecole Belleforière. Together with the other trainees she accompanied the primary school pupils during the lessons, played games with them, supervised them in a school trip, and taught them first German words and songs. The children especially enjoyed singing along the song “Je ne parle pas francais” by Namika. At the tearful end of her great work placement the children gave Jana a farewell letter and a lot of flowers. Jana writes, “The work placement was a very good and great experience and I am really glad that I have done it. During the week I could learn a lot and it was great fun, too. I can recommend doing a work placement there to everybody.”

La Coruna 2019

Annette Bleß — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 16:58:09 +0000

La Coruna/Oberhausen, 8th November 2019. Since 2001 an outstanding project has existed at the Heinrich-Böll-Comprehensive School in Oberhausen: For 14 days up to 16 pupils can immerge into the working world of Spain and in the context of a work placement they can cooperate in a kindergarten, a day care for the elderly, a library, an office, or in a school. This remarkable project was initiated by the very dedicated Spanish teacher Jörg Mallmann, who tirelessly encourages the pupils to do work placements in Spain and time and again enjoys accompanying them to Galicia. So, this year from the 5^th to the 18^th October school was again exchanged against a work placement abroad. In the morning they worked, in the afternoon they went shopping in the city centre of La Coruna, or they ate tapas together. For the first time this great project was supported by the Elena Bless Foundation. In an afterwards meeting in Oberhausen the chairwoman of the foundation could have a look at beautiful photos of the stay in Spain and successful folders of the work placement, try tasty tapas and also get into a conversation with the very nice pupils, who enthusiastically reported on their work placement.

Brighton 2019

Annette Bleß — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 17:16:15 +0000

Brighton, 22^nd September 2019. During their work placement in a charity shop of the organization “British Heart Foundation”, which commits itself to studying heart diseases and their control, Ireen and Jason enjoyed working in a really nice team. While Ireen’s duties were “putting a price tag on clothes, DVDs etc., putting up and damping the clothes, cleaning up the shop, and washing up donated dishes”, Jason could “sort books and reduce the price of articles which had been in the shop for a long time”. Besides, he accepted donations, registered the names of the donators in a system, and could sometimes accompany the driver who collected the donations through the city. In their free time the two of them could not complain of boredom, either. So Ireen writes in her report that one day she went to London with a class mate and suddenly found herself in the midst of a “Fridays for Future” demonstration. By bus and train she also explored the surrounding area of Brighton: “The landscape out of the town is breath-taking: milelong beach, cliffs, and many routes for walking. Simply a place for breathing deeply.” Jason tells in his report that he met with the English driver in his free time to do something together with him, thus he got to know a lot of people, and all in all could improve his language skills by the work placement.

Lubliniec (Polen) 2019

Annette Bleß — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 17:13:47 +0000

Lubliniec, 2nd September 2019: By means of kinship ties Jacqueline succeeded in doing her work placement in a psychiatric hospital in Poland. During her three weeks stay in the Upper Silesian district town Lubliniec she could get to know all departments of the hospital. In the process she had conversations with a lot of people from the age of 4 to the age of 70, which often affected her very much. However, she mainly helped in the staff department and took care of the correct filing of important documents of the staff. Jacqueline concludes her vivid report (https://elena-bless-stiftung.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Lubliniec-2019-1.pdf) with the statement “The work placement was a great experience and I realized that thereby I became much more autonomous (…).”

Köln 2019

Annette Bleß — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 15:30:35 +0000

Cologne, 1^st September 2019. Hannah experienced two highly interesting weeks in the press agency Fromme in Cologne and got a very good impression of journalistic life. In her report on her work placement the 18-year-old high school graduate from Aulnay-sous-Bois describes that this “is not easy and often combined with stress”. During her 8-hours working day Hannah could deal with very different fields of activities. Among others she was allowed to participate in meetings of the agency, write a feedback discussion by herself, file articles, write short messages for the insurance monitor, and do research for French start-ups and fin techs. In doing so Hannah could perfectly apply her diverse knowledge of languages.

Southwick 2019

Annette Bleß — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 15:28:23 +0000

Southwick, 27th August 2019. In her three-weeks work placement in the Interactive English Language School Laurana worked with MS Office and documented numerous data of students in an excel table. As she attended a language course in addition to her work placement and lived with an English host family, she could linguistically profit at most from her time in England. At the end of her report Laurana asserts that she found it exciting “to get to know a lot of new people from different cultures”.