What does Amal do?

Amal is a group of journalists with a refugee background who live in Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt/Main and work together to produce local news in Arabic, Ukrainian and Dari/Farsi. They have been online in Berlin since March 2017, in Hamburg since April 2019, and in Frankfurt/Main since the beginning of 2023.  Amal publishes news, reports, videos and podcasts and informs those who have no access to German media.  In this way, they help displaced people feel at home in Germany more quickly.  

 

 

 

 

Why are we awarding a grant to Amal?

We are convinced that people who are aware of what is happening in their environment are more likely to join in, have their say and help shape events.  But many newly arrived refugees get their news from media from their home countries or from international media outlets.  These offer little information about political and social life in Germany.  And for its part German media rarely targets its news at newly arrived refugees and displaced people.  This means that often all that is left is social media offerings – but in many cases these are not true journalistic contributions; furthermore, they frequently reinforce prejudice and spread rumors.  This is where Amal fills a gap, as evidenced by the increasing demand for its output.  Amal is all about ensuring that information reaches specific target groups, which is why authorities and institutions are now looking to cooperate with the Amal project.

What is our mutual goal?

By working together with Amal, we want to achieve integration on two fronts.  Firstly, Amal offers journalists who have had to leave their homeland - often due to oppression and persecution - an opportunity to continue practising their profession.  14 journalists in exile have been employed by Amal and, consequently, found a place in society.  And secondly, these journalists are themselves now making an important contribution to bringing integration to the wider communities of refugees.  Given that they now regularly write for German newspapers, they are also broadening the perspective of the majority society helping it to understand the perspective of the new arrivals – and this, in turn, is promoting mutual understanding and acceptance.  Amal is now moving to the next phase: the plan is for the project to become an innovative social enterprise that increasingly generates its own budget.

The grant for the Amal project will be co-funded by our Media & Society programs.