Diversity
The other and me
Since its foundation in 2006, rainbowtrekkers has stood for human diversity among children and employees, which is also expressed in the fact that we have included the rainbow as a sign of diversity in our choice of name. Long before it became fashionable in business to “show one’s true colours,” rainbowtrekkers had positioned itself as an employer that ensures equal opportunity for all employees regardless of their national, cultural, religious, sexual, or health background. Most recently, a 2019 sample showed that our approximately 50 employees come from 12 different countries of origin. The majority of the children cared for by us come from mainly monolingual German-speaking parents, but at least a large minority from mixed-language parents, including English, Turkish, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Greek, Croatian or Hindi as another language.
For us, this human diversity is not a world view or an end in itself, but simply a fact to be valued. Diversity finds its limits where our values described above are not shared as a community or where they are reduced to absurdity in the name of diversity. No one should have a disadvantage or an advantage because they belong to a particular social group. Diversity also ends in our kindergartens where egalitarianism begins. We do not want to turn the other into a second “we”.
For us, diversity is rather based on the dialogical principle of the German-Jewish philosopher of religion Martin Buber, according to which every human being needs a counterpart who is different from themselves, so that they can define themselves in contrast to one another. Without being different no true encounter is possible – or in the words of the Israeli author Ester Golan:
We meet each other. But we meet in our otherness.
I need the other to see me.
I hope the other needs me so that they can be seen and see themselves in that way.
We need each other to perceive each other.
Each one must preserve their own self. Who am I if I am not me.
– Ester Golan
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