Donation Doubler, Make-a-Wish, and an intercultural playing card project

GameDuell believes that social responsibility begins with each of us. To live up to this claim and to lead by example, we donate to numerous charitable organizations and associations every year.

^{(f.l.t.r.) Sini, Pierre, Lena, Felicia, Saeed, Salah}

One aspect of this is our Donation Doubler program, where we match the charitable donations of our team members. This way, in 2023 we made donations to the following organizations:

Aktion Deutschland Hilft e.V., ALBA BERLIN Basketballteam e.V. for “ALBA Jugend”, Ärzte ohne Grenzen e.V. (MSF), Björn Schulz Foundation, Brot für die Welt, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe e.V., German Red Cross e.V., Die Arche Children’s Foundation, Die Tafel e.V., IndoHub e.V., Netzpolitik.org e.V., SOS-Kinderdorf e.V., and a non-profit organization that cleans oceans.

In our Make-a-Wish program our team members join hands to bring smiles to a non-profit institution by choosing a donation instead of a christmas-present. We raised donations for the following organizations:

Aspies e.V. represents the interests of people with autism and their relatives to professionals and institutions. Run by people on the autism spectrum, they create spaces, campaign for self-determination, advocate for appropriate care, break down barriers in professional training, participate in research, and engage in educational representation of autism in the mass media and specialist literature.

Since 1977, a variety of ships, as part of the Sea Shepherd fleet, have helped defend marine life. Sea Shepherd ships continue to patrol the world’s oceans, conduct research, and intervene directly to enforce international conservation laws and defend, protect, and conserve the remaining biodiversity in our oceans.

Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli e.V. is a non-profit association that is committed to ensuring that all people worldwide have access to clean drinking water. They always include the sanitary and hygiene supply components in order to guarantee permanent access to clean drinking water.

Furthermore, we supported WeSpeakYouDonate e.V. by having a workshop with them on the topic of diversity. The organization is committed to promoting equal opportunities based by raising donations through talks and workshops at companies.

One project in particular piqued our interest which we decided to support with our most recent Company Charity donation:

Playing cards are popular all over the world. Whether oriental, East Asian, Indian or European, these cards have developed in different cultures around the world, largely separately from one another.

SPEICHER_Leute e.V. of Stralsund are initiating an intercultural playing card project “Integrate through Play”.

On the site of the former playing card factory located at Kütertor / Heilgeiststr. Stralsund, which is now home to a Muslim cultural and meeting center, the association will open a migration office in spring. There, young people will get to know each other by playing cards. Later, they will work together on a new game idea, in which a hybrid of the card games Rummy, Skat and Doppelkopf (which are frequently played in Germany), and Pişti, Yaniv and Trix (which are familiar from Turkey, Israel, and Arab countries) will be created.

As the same illustrations are used for all card game variants (diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs), there is a common basis for conversation and understanding. The respective variations of the familiar hand of cards are then learned about in joint and/or publicly organized game evenings, which above all promotes an inclusive exchange and development of intercultural skills.

Sini Lepschies accompanies the intercultural playing card project which starts in January 2024.

Schon als kleines Kind habe ich im SPEICHER Kurse besucht, Schülerpraktika absolviert und unterstütze aktuell den Verein als Bundesfreiwilligendienstleistende.

[English translation: "Already as a small child, I attended courses at SPEICHER, completed school internships and currently support the association as a federal volunteer."]

Sini Lepschies - Bundesfreiwilligendienstleistende SPEICHER_Leute e.V.

The city of Stralsund is considered to be the cradle of the German playing card industry. Around 100 years ago, Stralsund was home to “Vereinigte Stralsunder Spielkartenfabriken”, the largest and most important card game factory in Germany, where cards were produced and sent all over the world. This factory closed in 1931, moved to Altenburg and the factory was demolished.

In 2009, SPEICHER_Leute e.V. refounded the playing card factory at Katharinenberg as a non-profit project including a museum workshop. Here, children, young people, and adults work together and develop new card games and print them on historical machines and presses using handicraft techniques. The premises serve as a museum, workshop, laboratory, and social meeting point in one place. An exhibition shows card decks and exhibits from the historic playing card game factory of Stralsund and visitors get a vivid impression of how the working conditions were in an old print shop and can even buy some beautifully designed card decks.

We like in particular that anyone can come and join in: children and adults, tourists and locals, amateurs and specialists.

Young people from Stralsund are increasingly involved in the production process as part of a youth workshop. The association conducts all of its youth work according to participatory principles and in an accessible manner - their aim is to get young people interested in handicraft activities in an age-appropriate and playful way.

Images: ©SPEICHER_Leute e.V.
Related Links:
Playing Card Factory > www.spiefa.de

All Logos and images are property of the respective organizations.
The use of the illustrations, photos, and logos (Copyright ©) is made with kind permission from the respective organization.

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