At the Alex Berlin television station in the German capital, Heba from Syria, Jamal from Azerbaijan and Ahmed from Afghanistan have found an opportunity to start their career as journalists. They are working as interns in the TV station for 18 months.

David Bedürftig, the program's supervisor, said to InfoMigrants: "Alex Berlin has offered an opportunity to three refugee journalists and they will have an 18-month paid training. We want to teach them German first. In cooperation with the Berlitz Language Center, we have offered the three interns an intensive German language course, in addition to practical training. The program will also help the journalists in networking and publishing their work in different media houses, such as the Tagesspiegel, NTV, Radio Deutschland and Deutsche Welle,  and that will help them in their future as well."

The program began in May 2017 and the three journalists were taken into the team directly. They first worked on strengthening their journalistic skills and then  did their first live broadcast during the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin. They also participated in workshops in many media houses. The three interns will also workon a 30-minute film, to be screened at the Refugee Cultures Festival in Berlin. Alex's program has also offered  the participants classes at a media school twice a week.

By refugees, for refugees

The Alex TV program is not the only project for refugee journalists in Berlin. Many media houses have launched similar projects to integrate new reporters into the labor market in Germany. For example The Tagesspiegel, one of the oldest newspapers in Berlin, has launched a project called #Jetztschreibenwir, German for "We are writing now" last September. The outlets wants to publish a whole edition written by refugees. The first attempt took place in September 2016 and the newspaper is conducting more workshops with journalists for a new edition.

Among the other projects for refugees in Berlin, one of the most prominent is Amal Berlin, Arabic for "Berlin hopes." This platform was launched by two journalist sisters teaching at the Evangelical School of Journalism. The website is a place for Arabic and Persian readers to know what's going on in Berlin and Germany. It started with a two-month long workshop for journalists at the end of 2016 and when the journalists finished their training, the training evolved into a news website for refugees – by refugee journalists.

"There are a lot of news sites in Arabic, Persian or other languages ​​here in Germany, and Amal Berlin is  one of them, but the special thing is all the journalist are working with it are refugees themselves," said Abdel Rahman Omreen, coordinator of the Arab section of Amal Berlin.

"The good thing about when we started working here was that we didn't have to speak good German as a condition to work. A lot of us couldn't learn the language because of the delay in our papers or some other problems. That was a great opportunity for us," he added.

How does Amal Berlin help the journalists? Abdel Rahman Omreen answered: "It is not easy to work as a journalist in this country and with a different language, it becomes more complicated. The project offered us a job opportunity and we don't have to depend on social aid any more. The Evangelical School of Journalism also assists in learning German."

Explaining further, Abdel Rahman Omreen  said, "It was a very good opportunity for me on the personal level. I learned how the system in Germany works. I can get in touch with officials differently here, compared to how I did it back in my country. I work with a different level of freedom here, which I didn't experience before. "

Getting journalists on the right track

After the refugees started to arrive in Germany in 2015, the idea of ​a ​"tandem", language partner started to spread between refugees and locals. And from that experience, an organization called the Neue Deutsche Medienmacher  found a way to help journalists. Their project, which started in 2016, allowed refugee journalists to collaborate with German journalists in their work introducing them to the German system, explaining different methods and ways of working.

Rebecca Routh and Ebru Tasdemir are the two journalists responsible for the project. They explain the idea to InfoMigrants. "We started with a monitoring program with journalists having a migrant background. These journalists were accompanied by their German colleagues during their work. The first goal was to network, helping them understand daily issues at work, observing the details in the office and enriching their work through different perspectives," Ebru said.

"The German newsrooms, for example, do not include many journalists with immigrant backgrounds, so we are working to promote this idea and change it ," she added.

The program does not only help refugee journalists, although Ebru Tasdemir rejected the word "help". She said, "The project is a way to put journalists on the right track. Most of the journalists in our program have history and experience. And we tell them how to get employment and where."

"Sometimes the program helps journalists get legal documents and speed up their legal status through letters of recommendation, but often we can not keep up with some colleagues because of their difficult circumstances and their own problems," Rebecca Routh added.