Afropunk_Carol

Last year I started a FB group called Berlin 4 Beginners. My intention was to provide current and trustworthy news and information for Berlin's expat community through providing translated texts directly from German original sources. Initially, I wanted to make sure non-German speakers had access to the same information as German-speakers, in particular with regard to claiming emergency aid.

I also wanted to provide an antidote to the generally toxic environments of other expat groups where it seemed to me that often the admin was "missing in action" whenever bullying, trolling or racist / sexist / xenophobic / anti-Muslim or anti-Semite abuse took place.

I wanted to create the kind of group, I had never seen on FB - a group where the admin took an active part in the conversations and where the admin created new and original content specifically for the members each day. I also wanted to create a proper community, where people would feel confident to ask their questions in the knowledge that they would not be trolled or ridiculed. I act quickly on any flagged comments and unlike in other groups, I do not allow "freedom of speech" at any cost.

Berlin 4 Beginners is a curated group. It is also a selective group. Not everyone who applies is accepted. All applications are checked. People who do not answer the screening questions or who have suspicious profiles are automatically rejected. In this way, I try to maintain the quality of the membership.

Running B4B has become a full time job, creating new content, managing the membership, adding topics to posts, doing research and answering questions on myriad subjects. I easily put in 4 - 5 hours daily.

I have been doing this since March. The project started out to provide info on corona aid and has turned into something much bigger.

Your financial support would be very much appreciated. If you could set up a recurring subscription (weekly, monthly, annually), it would provide me with some kind of security and allow me to continue working for you all, creating new content and managing the group so that it remains a non-toxic, relatively safe environment. Something which is a bit of a rarity on FB.