Volunteering near you
Volunteering in Dresden
From the Citizens Foundation platform to the volunteer fair at the town hall: how to find a role in Dresden that fits your time and your interests
Contact points
| Contact point | What you find there |
|---|---|
| Freiwilligenagentur ehrensache.jetzt (Bürgerstiftung Dresden) | The Citizens Foundation advice and placement service. On its platform, non-profit organisations list volunteer roles free of charge, and you can search by topic or simply browse. |
| Ehrenamtsbörse der Landeshauptstadt Dresden | The city page for the annual volunteer fair at the town hall, where clubs and initiatives present themselves grouped by district. You can talk to volunteers there in person. |
| Diakonie Dresden | Volunteering in care homes, nurseries, homelessness services, inclusive projects and the station mission. Diakonie posts its open roles on ehrensache.jetzt. |
- State
- Saxony
Where can I find volunteering in Dresden?
The most direct route is the volunteer agency ehrensache.jetzt, run by the Bürgerstiftung Dresden, the city’s Citizens Foundation. It offers advice and placement, and its main tool is an online platform that the foundation designed and launched in Dresden at the beginning of 2019. Non-profit organisations and initiatives list their roles there free of charge. You can search for a particular topic or simply browse what is needed at the moment.
The platform covers the whole city, and the agency itself names places from Pillnitz to the Alaunpark and Pieschen. If you would rather talk to a person than to a search form, the agency also offers advice. It works in partnership with the city, whose pages on civic engagement point to the service.
Once a year it is also worth going to the town hall. At the Dresden volunteer fair, organised by the agency with support from the city, clubs and initiatives present their work at their own stands. The fair is arranged by district, so you can look specifically for opportunities near you. Hands-on activities at the stands show you what volunteering there actually feels like.
Which areas are there?
The range runs from social work through education and culture to sport and neighbourhood life. On the ehrensache.jetzt platform, primary schools have found reading mentors, a literature festival found help with admission and guiding guests, and a sports club found a coach for its handball group. A monastery garden, a school museum and a family centre also report new volunteers there. These examples come from the feedback organisations have posted on the platform’s home page.
Diakonie Dresden has a clear focus on social work. Its volunteers work in care homes, nurseries, homelessness services, inclusive projects and in the station mission at the main railway station. There are also projects Diakonie runs together with others, such as the ecumenical telephone helpline or the ecumenical night cafés that parishes open for homeless and lonely people.
Some roles need preparation. Volunteers for the telephone helpline are trained according to a curriculum that is the same across Germany. For most roles, reliability and openness are enough, and you learn the rest on the spot. Diakonie also posts its open roles on ehrensache.jetzt, so you can compare everything in one place.
How can I get involved in peace and understanding?
The most direct way to support understanding is through projects where people of different backgrounds and generations meet. On the ehrensache.jetzt platform, for example, the Ausländerrat Dresden, a council working with people from abroad, reports that it has recruited volunteers there. A UNICEF working group found helpers through the platform for workshops that teach children about their rights. Roles like these support peaceful coexistence in a very practical, everyday way.
One of the recent volunteer fairs took the motto “Engagement meets neighbourhood”. That describes well what local understanding is about: contact in your own district, including across language barriers. People from all over the city, with many different mother tongues, came to the town hall for the fair the year before. If you want to connect with people who are new to the city, you will find suitable clubs there.
On W3ltfrieden you can also create your own peace mission or support an existing one. A mission is a verifiable project with a responsible person, and its progress is documented in the mission log. It could be a discussion group in your district or a project you take on together with a local club. The mission overview shows you whether there are already missions near you.
How much time do I need to bring?
You decide how much you do, from a few hours a month to several mornings a week. A nursery describes on the ehrensache.jetzt platform how varied this can be. People in work come almost every week for two hours, a pensioner and a student come once for a morning, and another person comes three times a week. Organisations usually state the times when they need help.
Seasonal or one-off roles are a good way in if your diary is full. The ecumenical night cafés, for example, open only from November to March, and a festival needs helpers on just a few days. That way you get to know a field without a long commitment. If it suits you, you can take on more later.
More important than the number of hours is that your commitment is reliable. One organisation writes on the platform that not every placement works out because some people have very specific ideas about timing. So be open about what you can offer before you start. Then the organisation can plan, and you begin your first weeks feeling confident.
Sources
Four steps to volunteering
- Clarify your interestsThink about who you want to support and how much time a month is realistic. That makes your search on the platform much shorter.
- Search the platformOn dresden.ehrensache.jetzt you will find roles from across the city. You can search for something specific or let the listings give you ideas.
- Visit the volunteer fairThe fair at the town hall is organised by district. You can meet clubs from your own neighbourhood in person before you commit.
- Get in touchContact the organisation and arrange a first meeting. Together you agree on tasks, times and who will support you at the start.
More cities
- Volunteering in LeipzigSaxonyIn Leipzig the route into volunteering usually leads through the volunteer agency, complemented by city advice, a volunteering fair and the institutions of welfare organisations
- Volunteering in BerlinBerlinBerlin has volunteer centres in its districts, a large volunteering fair and a church-based placement service, and here you will find the three main routes to your role
Keep going with W3ltfrieden
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Turn it into a peace mission. The peace mission bot asks you five questions and drafts a first outline. Nothing is published before people have reviewed it.
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W3ltfrieden is in its build-up phase. The support page lists every way to help carry the platform and its first missions.