Reker under pressure: Children and youth clubs in Cologne before the end?

Reker under pressure: Children and youth clubs in Cologne before the end?

Cologne's mayor Henriette Reker (independent) is criticized after defending the planned reductions and deletions of offers for children and young people. According to a spokesman for Reker, Alexander Vogel, the mayor always focused on the concerns of children and adolescents during her tenure. Nevertheless, the current draft budget provides for savings on important offers.

As part of the largest school building program initiated by Reker, despite the challenges, a household should be designed, which is to receive many offers, despite the challenges. This happens to avoid drastic cuts. Nevertheless, the planned savings have already led to the end of a successful project in which school yards were used as play and sports fields for children.

cuts in detail

For households 2025 and 2026, significant savings are planned for child and youth offers. These include the valuable reading projects and school materials. The reduction in grants for holiday programs that are said to drop from 760,000 euros to zero is particularly worrying. Cologne sports clubs already express their concerns and speak of the possible death of popular sports, which could have a significant impact on child and youth work.

Anja Hogrefe from TV Dellbrück emphasizes how important sport is for the development of social, emotional and cognitive skills in children. In the ranks of the Cologne SPD, there is a clear rejection of the planned social cuts, which are viewed as profound cuts. The SPD also plans a solidarity contribution from one euro to concert and theater tickets to support the free scene and projects, such as the music festival eight bridges.

effects on culture and education

The SPD names specific projects that are at risk from the impending cuts. These include:

• Central depot of the Cologne Museums
• New construction of the foot and cycle path bridge on the Bastei
• Continuation of the Rheinboulevard in Deutz
• Planning costs for the Kalkberg
• Expansion of the green area in Nippes

from the Cologne Jugendring e.V. is urgently warned that the interests of children and adolescents are strongly endangered by the cuts. Member initiatives, such as the JFC media center and the Cologne playground, are directly affected by these cuts. The planned measures provide for cuts from 25 % to 50 % of urban funding for individual carriers.

The savings are expected to bring around 350,000 euros for the city of Cologne, but the affected institutions are horrified by the elimination of ten half places they received in 2020. These jobs are crucial for the third middle acquisition and the expansion of cultural offers in disadvantaged districts.

In view of the pandemic location as well as the flood disaster and the Ukrainian secretary, the facilities have already taken on additional tasks. Nevertheless, they should now work without a contractual protection because planned grant contracts have not been implemented. This leads to a massive breach of trust, and the facilities are calling for the reductions to be withdrawn and a permanent securing of the positions in financial planning.

The problems resulting from the planned reductions could have far -reaching consequences for the culturally and socially disadvantaged groups in Cologne. While the city administration is trying to do a household that receives many offers, resistance to these cuts is becoming increasingly concrete. The discussion about the future of child and youth offers in Cologne is unmistakable and will become more important in the coming months.

For more information on the topic, the Cologne youth ring here here detailed insights into the measures concerned and their effects on the offers for children and adolescents. In response to the tense situation, the Reporting of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger is indicated, the current developments are illuminated and the positions of the participating actors are.