Gudensberg, Germany, 14 June 2018. “Having a good command of German is a huge advantage and will open all kinds of doors for you in life. Since this is, of course, also true for all schoolchildren in Gudensberg, poultry producer Plukon, which operates a production site in Gudensberg, is funding the purchase of a variety of materials to make it easier for children to learn the language. The company has donated a total of €2,500 to the Sonnenstrahl (Sunbeam) day care centre in Gudensberg, to help the children enrolled there to develop their German-language skills in an easy and playful way. Carmen Linsing, a teacher at the day care centre, is pleased with the donation, as preschool children are the perfect age when it comes to stimulating language development. The initiative serves mainly to support children whose native language is not German.
In addition to books to be used by both parents and children, a series of games and various other teaching materials and media will help children prepare linguistically for the requirements of their German schooling, thereby laying an important foundation for a successful school career. But good German-language skills are important not just in terms of improving school performance: children from immigrant backgrounds will also integrate into the school more smoothly if they have a good command of the language. Once children are properly integrated, this also makes it easier overall for their families – who were forced to leave their countries for a multitude of reasons – to assimilate into German society. This is a phenomenon with which Plukon employees are all too familiar, having experienced it first-hand in their community. “We employ a number of people at our Gudensberg site who have only been living in Germany for a short period of time, and we are aware of the difficulties they can sometimes experience when they first settle here,” Plukon site manager Frank Grundl says. “That’s why we’re committed to supporting these people as they adjust to living and working in Germany.”
