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On December 12, the day-care center "IUB Kids e.V." celebrated its official opening. The initiative offers bilingual German/English full-time care and a playgroup for preschool children of working parents in the IUB community and its neighborhood. IUB made the set-up of IUB Kids possible by providing rent-free newly renovated on-campus premises. Additionally, the Bremen Senate supports the project.
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Dec
13, 2005]
Welcoming about eighty guests, including the first IUB Kids generation aged between 6 months and 4 years, IUB Vice president Alexander Ziegler-Jöns said he was more than happy about the successful start of IUB Kids as one of the most important steps of IUB becoming a family-friendly university. Petra Lietz, IUB professor and member of IUB Kids’ board, then shortly introduced the center's new bilingual day-care program and described the reconstruction of the former officers’ mess that houses IUB Kids. She thanked all supporters for "helping to light a small beacon in the general darkness of child-care available to working parents.”
Keynote speaker Dr. Arnold Knigge, state councilor to the Bremen Senator for Labor, Women, Health, Youth and Social Issues, emphasized that creating the day-care infrastructure especially for small children is a societal key task and prerequisite for making family and job compatible. Knigge, who had a major part in proving the IUB project with public funding, complimented IUB Kids e.V. as exemplary for all of Bremen. The IUB kids added to the occasion by presenting self-made gifts to the state councilor and the IUB management. Untying a red ribbon in front of the building’s main entrance and the guests touring IUB’s unique new day-care facility rounded out the official inauguration.
Special: The child-care program of IUB Kids e. V.
"IUB Kids" was founded as a registered association in December 2004. Its about 30 members represent more than ten nations. What makes the IUB Kids program unique is the bilingual English and German day-care offered to very young children of working parents of the international IUB Campus Community. Spaces are assigned to those families where both parents are employed at IUB or study full-time. Families from the IUB neighborhood also profit, as any places not used by IUB members are available to the public. At present 16 children are cared for at "IUB Kids", 9 from external families.
IUB made "IUB Kids" possible by providing rent-free campus premises, and by investing approximately 100,000 euro for renovations. Also IUB covers utility and on going maintenance costs. Due to its unique characteristics – its internationality and availability to the community – "IUB Kids" is the only child-care project in 2005 that was supported by the Bremen Senate, at present with a yearly sum of about 45,000 euro. All additional costs are financed by parental contributions.
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What IUB Kids e. V. has to offer: |
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1. Daily full time care:
Eight children – the smallest younger than one year and the oldest three years old –, come from 8 a. m. to 4 p. m. and are cared for by two professional child educators. Both have collected international experiences in the USA and in Asia. One only speaks German with the children, the other one only English. The program, including meals and sleep times of the children as well as a movement class in one of the campus sports hall, costs parents 300 euro monthly, and exists since September 2005.
2. Play group:
Eight children, aged between one to four years, come three times weekly for three and a half hours to the morning play group. This program, for which parents pay a maximum of 85 euro monthly, exists since May 2005. An Icelander and two Russian IUB students supervise the children bilingually.
In addition the language school Abrakadabra provides twice weekly courses to intensify the children’s English knowledge.
IUB Kids was set up in the refurbished officers’ mess of the former Roland barracks. In total the 300m² space consists of four children's play areas, two child-friendly bathrooms, a baby changing room, a kitchen, a dining room and an office. In addition the 153 m² garden offers a large area for exercise in the fresh air. The carpentry work for the furniture and toys was courtesy of the Bremen association work and learning center e.V.
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