English Information 1 (3)

Dear English-speaking Visitor,

You are cordially welcome to Guide to Civil Society Germany (»Wegweiser Buergergesellschaft«)

This web-site was initiated and finally made available online in November 2001 for the idea and purpose of:

Both the idea and purpose are important in the background of modern societies: developing democracies by supporting and improving political and social participation of the citizens.

The Guide to Civil Society Germany was established as a Web Portal focussed on the specific topic of civil society activities. It is designed to help finding useful paths through the enormous amount and variety of information. In that sense it presents more a complement to other portals and sites, than a competitor. What makes its particular or even distinguishing claim is to show ways, methods and instruments of immediate participation.

The Guide is run by »Stiftung MITARBEIT« (Foundation for Citizens Cooperation), which in general tries to assist, coordinate and integrate (not only by virtual means) democratic NGO-activities in Germany with a clear focus on smaller initiatives and Self-Help-Organisations. The Guide is based upon an information- and documentation database developed by »Stiftung MITARBEIT« since 1989. It offers public access to data and information on broad and different fields of civic and volunteer activities in Germany. In the Ninetees civil society information and knowledge was mainly distributed by conventional communication means (which of course still are very important). Although via World Wide Web it is now open to everyone on a global scale its primary purpose remains still the same: information for German citizens, support, consulting and networking of German Civil Society Organisations.

For that reason, neither in terms of practical needs nor with respect to available ressources it would at this point make much sense to try to transfer this entire information pool into an english version. We are aware of the task of networking on a European or even global level and therefore wish to improve the communication interfaces to (at least) the English-speaking world. At this moment we can only offer two things, first a short overview about the idea, the objectives, the organisation and the content of this site and secondly the obligation and promise to respond to every serious question or request with all available support.

The Guide to Civil Society Germany is based upon six main sectors and a direct interface to the »hub« in the German Civil Society Network, which is integrating state and market actors: