Association for Friendships: „We Want to Promote Social Competence and Diminish Fears of Contact“

Cooking together, dancing and playing football – this works best with good friends. To make all this also possible for people with mental handicaps, the association “Best Buddies” finds friends for them. After that, they meet each other regularly or write e-mails – for at least one year.

01/05/2011

Beatrice Loeb; © Best Buddies

Beatrice Loeb is one of three board directors of „Best Buddies Germany“. REHACARE.de talked to her about common hobbies, criminal records and why this interview would have almost not been given.

REHACARE.de: When participating in "Best Buddies" people with mental handicaps (buddies) as well as people without handicap (peer buddies) pledge themselves to stay in regular contact with each other for one year. Mrs. Loeb, can friendships develop in this way at all, or is everything over after one year?

Beatrice Loeb: All participants commit themselves voluntarily. There are peer buddies who want to meet another buddy after this year, because they want to meet as many new people as possible. Others connect so well after this year and have built up such a good friendship that they stay in contact afterwards, with pleasure. However, in individual cases, it can also be that the buddies already stop the project before the end of the common year. Since not every buddy is able to build up an appropriate relation, due to his handicap.

REHACARE.de: How can interested people find friends with the help of the association?

Loeb: If interested, one only needs to fill out the form on our homepage. With it you can request the first detailed information. It is really important to describe ones interests in detail. The more one tells us about himself and his hobbies, the better we can find the suitable buddy.

REHACARE.de: So common interests are the basis for finding friendships?

Loeb: Yes, because it is of no help for anybody if for example one girl dances and cooks with pleasure and the other one has generally no relation to this. By the way, we only connect girl to girl and boy to boy. This simplifies the contact with each other.

Together everything is just more fun: When cooking together every single person had a great time in the kitchen; © Best Buddies

REHACARE.de: There are three different programmes: the school programme, the citizen programme and the e-buddies programme. What is the difference between them?

Loeb: Pupils from the seventh form are organised in the school programme by a guidance counselor of the school. We as the association are only there for advice and support. The guidance counselor supports the pupils and is also present at the group meetings with the buddies. Private meetings are rather rare here. They are much more a part of the citizen programme, which starts from an age of 18 years. The association itself organises everything for this programme. However, in both programmes the buddies and peer buddies are known to the association employees personally.

REHACARE.de: And what is the e-buddies programme about?

Loeb: This is, so to speak, a modern form of the letter friendship. The so-called e-buddies agree to write at least one e-mail per week to each other, for one year. Thus they can not only lead friendships across wide distances, moreover, it also promotes their abilities to handle a computer.

REHACARE.de: But, nevertheless, especially in the Internet many strange and dubious figures hang around. How can you guarantee for the security of the e-buddies?

Loeb: Of course we cannot get to know all e-buddies personally. So a criminal record is the most important condition for the participation in this programme. Maybe this sounds harsh, but it is necessary. At least, we want that all buddies feel well and that nobody has to make uncomfortable encounters.

Beatrice Loeb (left) and her buddy
Antje always enjoy spending time
together; © Sascha Amar Fartas

REHACARE.de: Do you actually speak from personal experience when talking about those friendships?

Loeb: Of course. Every employee of „Best Buddies Germany“ has a buddy himself. We go bowling together or play soccer – just everything that is more fun with friends.

REHACARE.de: Almost our interview wouldn't have happened at all. In 2009 the association had to announce insolvency. What had happened?

Loeb: About three years ago we have come to a difficult financial situation. The association finances itself mainly through donations. We received a big private donation when the association was founded. Although we planned to include this person as a long-term supporter, it then turned out that it was, nevertheless, only a unique donation. So we had to announce insolvency. This was our only possibility to pull the emergency brake still on time to prevent bigger financial losses.

REHACARE.de: Now since the end of 2010 the insolvency procedure is concluded. How do you want to proceed in future?

Loeb: This year we start again from scratch. We have lost some employees due to the insolvency. Also the board of directors was completely exchanged. In contrast to what we did previously, we now try to win many smaller sponsors, which support us by bearing in-kind benefits like the phone costs for example. We have learnt from the mistakes of the old board of directors and in addition, we also visit seminars regularly, in order to develop.

REHACARE.de: So, you do not want to give up the basic idea of "Best Buddies".

Loeb: That’s right. Besides all those changes the original idea is nevertheless preserved: All people are equal. Everybody has talents. We want to draw the attention to the fact that there are also other people in the society. And only because they are slower in some things and maybe look different, it is no reason to put them to the edge of our society. So we already want to start with the children to raise awareness. We want to promote social competence and diminish fears of contact.

The interview was conducted by Nadine Lormis.
REHACARE.de