The Jugendamt is an office, usually located in each Kreis or Kreisstadt and sometimes in other large towns.

The office is not only responsible for child protection and assisting parents that are unable to cope with their children, but also to arrange courses and activities for children.

They are also a point of contact for clubs and societies, eg. to apply for financial support to fund training courses or building repairs.  The rules for this vary from state to state.

Volunteers those clubs and societies can prove that they have a certain number of hours of training can go to the Jugendamt to apply for a JugendleiterInnen-Card, which gives them free or discounted entry to places such as swimming pools and museums.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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Regular listeners of The Monday Podcast may remember that I visited Madrid last year to take part in the Great Madrid Escape, an event organised by Ben Curtis and Marina Diez from NotesFromSpain.com.

Last week Ben released an audio book: “The Madrid Confessions”, telling the story of different parts of his life after arriving in Spain up until the present day.

I was lucky enough to pick up an early tweet about the book and download it early.  I’ve reviewed it in this week’s podcast:

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Notes From Spain: The Madrid Confessions

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The Wahlamt is an office, usually located in the town hall, that is responsible for organising elections.

It splits a town up into Wahlbezirke and sends out the postcards that tell the people who live in the town where and when they can go to vote.

The office is also the place to go if you want to apply for a postal vote, or if someone is ill on the day of the election and sends someone else to collect their ballot paper.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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