What is it like?

Child poverty in Germany does not mean homelessness or a lack of food. Families who are affected by poverty in Germany have a secure existence, but often only live with the bare essentials. A warm meal every day is not a matter of course for poor children in Germany. The children have to forego a lot of things that other people of the same age take for granted. Poverty is therefore not only a material but also a social problem.

When school trips or theater visits are due, some children have to stay at home because their parents cannot afford the money. Unlike others, you don't go to school with new books, pens and satchels. Children from poor families often have to forego tutoring.

Poor children have a harder time making friends. Invite friends home? Unthinkable! The apartment is so small that you don't have your own room and the money for food and drinks is already tightly calculated anyway. If they are invited to children's birthday parties, they cannot bring expensive gifts like classmates. Poor children do not have their own smartphone and cannot wear trendy branded clothes. Some of them freeze in winter because their parents cannot buy warm clothes. Pocket money is not a matter of course for them and there is also no money for the swimming pool or the cinema. Sport in a club costs money, just like music lessons. In many cases, the parents do not have a car and cannot even drive their children to training.