Prize for Arche Founders: The Exotic Who Became a Benefactor

Few people can say that they have brought a topic into the general consciousness. Bernd Siggelkow’s life is connected with the topic of child poverty in this way. This has a lot to do with his own starting requirements. Growing up in the then not yet upgraded Hamburg district of St. Pauli, he lost his mother as a child. Since then, he has experienced a struggle for existence and has derived a wish from it, says Siggelkow: “I wanted to do something to prevent others from growing up like this.” On an unusual straight path, Siggelkow became the founder and managing director of the children’s and youth work “The Ark”. For this he received a lot of recognition, 2008 the Federal Cross of Merit, 2024 the Bambi. This Wednesday, the thought leader prize of the financial agency Plansecur is added, which has concluded a media partnership with the F.A.Z. for its thought leader forum. Siggelkow has contributed significantly with his work to show the consequences of child poverty with concrete examples, says poverty researcher Gerda Holz. His institution, which has now expanded nationwide to 38 locations – with a focus on Berlin and Hamburg – shows daily how different the development and participation opportunities and the future prospects of poor children are. “The construction of the ark meant that the presence of child poverty in Germany could no longer be negated,” says Holz. When Siggelkow began his work in the early 1990s, childhood was considered happy in Germany. He experienced it differently: children who never sat on their laps, never got a hot meal, who felt like a fifth wheel on the wagon. In 1995, he founded the first ark without a comprehensive financing concept. The name should be understood in the sense of a lifeboat. Christian had been his imprint, says Siggelkow, since a pastor asked him as a youth if there was someone who loved him. “I was not a breast milk Christian and wanted to do things differently,” he says about his further path, which led him to study theology with the Salvation Army, a community in Lörrach in Baden and as a youth consultant in the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Doing things differently meant: instead of preaching to a few young people, playing volleyball with many young people, providing bread and cookies and asking children why they eat at his place and not at home. “I wanted to be a showcase,” he says. That meant getting the media involved early on. The PDS, the predecessor of today’s left, found his press work too aggressive and accused him of marketing himself about the state of his neighborhood. When he offered a hot lunch for children, first a local newspaper and then a national political magazine reported on television. More radical was the rejection of other groups who even carried out an arson attack on an Ark school. Frameworks can bring talents to unfold to shape images without cooperating with mass media was not possible even then. But The Ark was far more than a place that attracted attention. Siggelkow got involved and showed that individual opportunities must be created especially through political frameworks, says poverty researcher Holz. Only in this way could the great potential, talents and skills of children affected by poverty be strengthened. As a CDU candidate for the Berlin House of Deputies, Siggelkow failed in 2026. The Ark had the advantage of continuity over other social institutions, says Siggelkow. Not programs reached the children and adolescents, but relationships. This requires people who invest permanently and institutions that do not benefit from special payments from a political budget. But that was not a matter of course, he had long been beaten and had been an exotic. But in 2001, the Federal Government’s first poverty and wealth report supported his perspective. Siggelkow went from exotic to expert. One can hear from his remarks that Siggelkow is most impressed by the stories of the people: the child of drug-addicted parents, who is now training in the Ark as a social assistant. The children who dare to read to an audience with a reading dog on their arms. The young people who at some point thought of a better leisure activity than to go upstairs and pop with the girlfriend, as he says. Such work over more than three decades not only brings success, says Siggelkow. The system must learn, instead of looking at the masses at the individual. Schools are almost half of the days in the year empty, where are the clubs? German as a mandatory language would help children to find a job in the future. His wish: a free breakfast at every school.