Bonn International: Rahim Öztürker Working for the education of young people

Beuel · Rahim Öztürker earned his living as a ticket inspector and cab driver when he came to Bonn from Anatolia in 1973. Today, he is chairman of the DAAG-Bildungswerk, which provides students from 22 nations with a secondary school diploma.

 About 120 students a year come to the classrooms of the DAAG educational workshop, of which Rahim Öztürker is a co-founder.

About 120 students a year come to the classrooms of the DAAG educational workshop, of which Rahim Öztürker is a co-founder.

Foto: Stefan Hermes

Rahim Öztürker (70) still follows his father's advice today: "You should put your work and what you do first, not yourself and your family." Since Öztürker followed his two brothers to Germany from the Anatolian part of Turkey in 1973, he seems not only to have acted according to his father's maxim, but also to have taken it to heart in his work with migrants - that people should not be judged by their origins, but by their actions. This also gave him the impression, when he arrived at Frankfurt Airport almost 50 years ago, that the Germans must be a funny lot. But before the Bonn carnival season left this impression on him, the then 21-year-old was at first fascinated by the automatic doors at the airport. Today, he is head of the educational center of the German-Austrian Working Group (DAAG) in Beuel.

The fairy-tale descriptions of Germany in his Turkish schoolbooks seemed to be confirmed initially. Even though he did not yet understand or speak a word of German, he remembers the responses to his questions about how to get from the airport to the city as being friendly. Öztürker had to find his way on his own, because his brother slept through picking him up as had been promised. Given the possibility of bringing the family together, his brother had invited him to Germany only on the condition that he would not be a financial burden to him.

Become a doctor or study political science

"I would have liked to become a doctor or, in retrospect, study political science," says Öztürker. But because of his grades, he decided to study agricultural engineering at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne's Südstadt district. "But I never worked in the profession," says the agricultural machinery engineer. Instead, he started early on to teach his compatriots in either German or Turkish, or he accompanied them on visits to the local public authorities. "Helping was somehow in my genes," he says. Even as the youngest child in a large family, he says, he always wanted to be there for others. "Maybe I always had to prove myself in the process," he says thoughtfully. At school, he was always elected class spokesman to represent the interests of his classmates.

Öztürker was able to communicate in German just three months after arriving in Bonn. He emphasizes that language acquisition is one of the most important means of integration, even after more than 40 years as chairman of the DAAG. More than 2,000 students from 22 nations have now earned their Hauptschule or Realschule diplomas at the Beuel-based educational organization. "It's nice," Öztürker says, when he encounters doctors or lawyers today who once sat in his school desks and achieved the qualifications there to catch up on their high school diploma and go on to study. He was able to teach some of them the German language as a student, which ultimately led to the founding of the Bildungswerk on Siegburger Strasse.

At first earning a living by driving a cab and teaching

In his first ten years in Germany, Öztürker earned his money by teaching and driving a cab. For just under two years, he also worked for the Bonn public utility company as a conductor on the tram lines between Siegburg and Bad Honnef. "That was fun," he says looking back. "Another person without a ticket," is the phrase he will remember all his life as a subsequent ticket inspector, he says, laughing.

Because of his many voluntary commitments, Öztürker was elected to the Foreigners' Advisory Council of the city of Bonn in 1985. He took over the chairmanship of the advisory board four years later for 15 years. Not without pride, he looks back on a time when, under his chairmanship and at the suggestion of the advisory board, the concept for the international school in Bonn was developed or the International Women's Center was established. To this day, Öztürker is still active in many committees of the Bonn Council, experienced in working for the interests of those coming from other countries. In 2010, at his request, the anti-discrimination office was established in the administration. From 2014 to 2020, he took over the chairmanship of the Integration Council.

Discrimination has "difficulty gaining a foothold" in Bonn

Asked how Bonn's policy on non-nationals has developed in recent decades, Öztürker says that Bonn has always been a city where diversity is lived, which is why discrimination "has a hard time gaining a foothold." The migrants, who are now in their third and fourth generation of living in Germany, have evolved from their origins as so-called guest workers into participating members of German society. Critically, he notes that part of this German society, however, sees it differently. "Integration only works if both sides are willing to do it," Öztürker says. "The native doesn't have to act as a provider and understand that a foreigner is not always just the one asking for help.”

(Original text: Stefan Hermes / Translation: Carol Kloeppel)

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