Meeting Places in the Ahr Valley
SOZIAHR presents an analysis of the current situation and needs of community centres in the Ahr Valley, based on the participatory workshop held on 3 November 2025 and a subsequent online survey of known community centres.
(Survey data from spring 2026; general overview last updated on 28 July 2026)
- Adenau
- Altenahr
- Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
- Sinzig
- Grafschaft
54 Meeting Places
- 21 Central facilities
- 33 offered individual activities
24 Expert Assessments
- 16 Central facilities (76,2 %)
- 5 offered individual activities
- 3 general comments
Spatial Distribution
Central facilities are marked in black; individual services are marked in blue.
Central facilities
- Bürgerhaus Alte Schule
- Mehrgenerationentreff "vor Müllert"
- Begegnungscafé "nur mut"
- ASB-Begegnungsstätte Dernau
Individual activities
- Seniorentreff
- Klappcafé Freisheim
- Klappcafé Liers / Seniorennachmittag
- Klappcafé Altenburg
- Treff in der Kaffeebud
- Offener Eltern-Treff
- Jugendtreff "JuZe"
- Mädchentreff
- Bürgertreff
- Seniorentreff Lind (ergänzt am 28.7.26)
- Kaffeeklatsch Plittersdorf (ergänzt am 28.7.26)
Central facilities
- AWO-Quartierstreff
- :KERIT Café "Rastplatz"
- ASB-Begegnungsstätte Heimersheim
- Familientreffs und Geschäftsstelle des Kinderschutzbund KV Ahrweiler e.V.
- :KERIT Café „Casa Blankart“
- Begegnungsort Ahrweiler (Hoffnungswerk)
- Begegnungscafè Eifel Liebe Ahrtal
- Waschbar
- Café "Wieder daheim ankommen"
- Veedelstreff Domcafé Hemmessen
- Katholische Familienbildungsstätte
- Haus der Familie/ Mehrgenerationenhaus
- Begegnungs- und Servicecenter Ahr
Individual activities
- Ma(h)lzeit
- Begegnungsstätte für Kinder und Jugendliche Ramersbach
- Pius-Café
- Rosenkränzchen
Central facilities
Individual activities
Central facilities
Grafschaft was not originally included in the plan and was added later because these two organisations took part in the survey. Consequently, this list is not intended to be exhaustive.
Ranking by service coverage
- In Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, there is one central facility for every 2,174 residents (or one meeting place for every 1,663 residents in total).
- In the Verbandsgemeinde Altenahr, there is one central facility for every 2,599 residents (or one meeting place for every 800 residents in total).
- In Sinzig, there is one central facility for every 8,687 residents (or one meeting place for every 1,448 residents in total).
- In the Verbandsgemeinde Adenau, there is not a single central facility for 12,855 residents. There is one individual service for every 1,835 residents.
Important note on data quality
- The Grafschaft was not originally included in the survey and was added subsequently because the two organisations mentioned below took part in the survey. Consequently, this list is not intended to be exhaustive.
- In the case of the Verbandsgemeinde Adenau in particular, it is possible that some services may have been overlooked due to a lack of an online presence and personal contacts.
Contact
Please feel free to get in touch to provide details of any further offers or more up-to-date information on the ones already listed!
Great social and preventative significance
"In my view, the numerous meeting places have been and continue to be one of the most robust pillars that have helped people to cope with their problems, provided for them, in some cases offered them support, and given them confidence and a sense of hope for the future. I believe that learning from this disaster – so that we can take preventive action on the one hand, but also act more swiftly and effectively in similar situations – is the most important lesson to be drawn from it, despite all the suffering it has caused.” (Direct translation of original quote by survey participant)
"Every day, we see just how important it is not only to support people during acute crises, but also to create long-term spaces where they can rediscover trust, a sense of community and emotional stability. Healing, stabilisation and building resilience take time, reliable relationships and low-threshold services that are consistently accessible. Community centers and social meeting places play an important preventive role in this regard.” (Translation of quote by survey participant, abridged and reordered)
Key Findings
At least 15 of the meeting places were set up in the wake of the floods and continue to be run thanks to a great deal of voluntary work (an average of 14 volunteers per community centre surveyed).
Most of the programmes are run by Catholic organisations, take place during the day on weekdays, are discussion-based and are aimed primarily at older people. It is for this target group that the greatest need for expansion is identified.
Many key facilities currently have no secure prospects for the long term and could benefit greatly from public support. This includes, in particular, financial grants and the provision of suitable premises.
Context of the scientific analysis
On 3 November 2025, a SOZIAHR workshop was held in Remagen on the topic of ‘Meeting places in the Ahr Valley’, during which participants jointly drew up an initial overview of existing facilities and meeting places. In addition, relevant issues of concern to many people active in this field were compiled. Please refer to the documentation for further details.
SOZIAHR subsequently expanded the resulting list of 44 meeting places to a total of 52 through further research, for which meaningful figures on the current range of services are available (as at January–July 2026).
With the help of an online survey of meeting places, which took place in spring 2026, it was also possible to gather randomised assessments of expansion and support needs.
The data presented here is largely based on an online survey of meeting places. The survey took approximately 15 minutes to complete and comprised 18 questions – some open-ended and some closed-ended – as well as a request for key details regarding the organisation and the contact person.
One representative per meeting place was invited to provide information on the services currently on offer and to share their assessment of current additional needs and challenges.
Of the 24 people who took part in the survey, not everyone answered all the questions, which is why the respective respondent figures vary slightly.
The survey ran from 26 February 2026 to 9 June 2026.
The full questionnaire can be viewed here if you are interested.
A narrow definition of the term had already been established for the exploratory workshop on 3 November 2025 on the subject of meeting places in the Ahr Valley, and this definition was retained for the subsequent survey. This definition encompasses initiatives that are primarily aimed at bringing people together as an end in itself. This is to be clearly distinguished from numerous leisure activities, such as sports and music clubs and many others, where the primary focus is on a specific activity.
Also excluded from the overview are initiatives that are primarily aimed at counselling, social work or healthcare, such as certain services provided by the Gemeindeschwestern Plus (Dementia Café). This also includes support groups with specific entry requirements, such as self-help groups, which, whilst heavily focused on interaction, require participants to meet a specific criterion that goes beyond general factors such as age, gender, parenthood or similar.
During the evaluation, a distinction was also made between central facilities – which have a formal governing body and typically employ full-time staff, and offer a range of different activities – and one-off events that take place only occasionally (e.g. the monthly ‘Klappcafé’).
Furthermore, programmes taking place at different locations were listed separately, even if they are coordinated by the same organising body. A few other programmes are listed individually, even though they take place at the same location, as they are run by different organising bodies.
The activities on offer and the target groups they are aimed at were largely compiled through internet research, supplemented where necessary by the survey responses from the participating meeting places. The survey constitutes the sole source of data for assessing additional needs and problems.
The survey responses were collated in Excel with the research findings and standardised. Where anything was unclear, follow-up questions were put to the contact person. The free-text responses were ‘coded’, meaning they were grouped under umbrella terms to enable the presentation of frequency distributions (see, for example, ‘Problems & Support Needs’).
In three cases, questionnaire responses were classified as ‘overarching comments’ relating to an entire locality or a specific type of service (pop-up cafés) and were separated from specific meeting places. However, these were equally incorporated into the analysis to ensure that their perspective was not lost.
As the quotes above have already suggested, meeting places play a key role in helping individuals cope with crises and build resilience.
Immediately after the floods, many short-lived and informal meeting places and aid distribution points sprang up, which were vital to the lives of those affected in the first few months following the floods. Some of these still exist today.
For example, our survey identified 15 meeting places that were established in connection with flood relief efforts. The actual number is likely to be even higher.
Of the 20 meeting places surveyed, 7 are currently still involved in flood relief or reconstruction projects.
Detailed Results
Target groups
Many activities are generally open to anyone interested, but even more are aimed specifically at older people – more than half of all meeting places offer at least one regular event specifically for this group.
There are 11 facilities for children and young people in the Ahr Valley, 9 for families and 6 for parents or mothers.
Those affected by the floods are still explicitly described as a target group by 11 meeting places, even though there are no services intended exclusively for them.
Additional needs
The greatest need for further services was identified amongst older people (15 out of 20 respondents rated it as ‘high’ or ‘very high’), closely followed by parent-and-child services, as well as services for women and flood victims.
15 people also used the open-text field to suggest additional target groups that were missing from the standardised questionnaire or deserved further emphasis. The following were mentioned:
- Children and adolescents (7)
- Senior citizens (4)
- People in difficult social circumstances (3)
- People with a (regional) migrant background (3)
- People with disabilities (2)
- People with specific mental health needs (2)
- Flood victims (2)
- Parents/mothers (2)
Activities
The offered activities were divided into 10 groups and presented in order of frequency.
Many of the activities provide a generally open space for interaction (24), whilst even more (33) are primarily focused on conversation, often in conjunction with coffee and cake or a communal breakfast.
Some of the professional organisations also combine social activities with counselling and support services (16).
Creative activities (14) as well as sport and exercise (13) are also offered quite frequently.
- Conversation-based: storytelling café, storytelling corner, coffee and chat, breakfast, lunch, …
- Open space: open café, community centre, mums’ group, youth club, …
- Support and counselling: general social counselling; family counselling and workshops; programmes to boost mental wellbeing; support; information breakfasts, mobile phone courses, language courses, homework support, ...
- Creative activities: knitting, sewing, painting, singing, cooking, crafts, general handicrafts, drumming, ...
- Sports & relaxation: yoga, pilates, martial arts, dancing, walking, Qigong, gymnastics, meditation, ...
- Games: Board games, bingo, chess, table football, billiards, darts, boules, …
- Nature-based activities: Afternoons in the woods, animal-assisted activities, …
- Outings & short trips
- Cultural events: Readings, talks, cinema, exhibitions, …
- Other: Themed afternoons, sustainable activities, climate roundtable, bike repair workshop, …
Opening hours & accessibility
The vast majority of all the activities surveyed take place during the day on weekdays (43). Each on weekday evenings and at weekends at least 6 activities are taking place.
10 meeting places also stated that they have additional opening hours ‘depending on the activity’.
Of the 23 meeting places for which this survey data is available, a large majority of 19 were described as fully accessible and only 3 as not fully accessible (1 response was missing).
Trägerschaft
22 of the 52 meeting places are run by Catholic organisations, either directly by the church or parish community, or indirectly through organisations such as the Caritasverband Rhein-Mosel-Ahr e.V. or the Malteser Hilfsdienst e.V.
9 meeting places are run by civil society organisations with no links to the church or the local authority. These include the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund, the Arbeiter-Wohlfahrt, the German Red Cross, Fortuna hilft e.V., the Kinderschutzbund and the Förderkreis Hemmessener Dom.
8 meeting places are organised informally; that is to say, they have no official sponsoring body and are maintained primarily by individuals or loose networks.
Further 5 meeting places are run by Protestant organisations, either directly through the church or parish community or indirectly through the Johanniter Unfallhilfe.
5 meeting places are run by the city or the local council.
3 meeting places are run by Hoffnungswerk e.V., which has a Free Church background.
Staff & Funding
By far the most common source of funding for the 22 meeting places surveyed is donations, with 20 mentions. Temporary project grants are also relatively common, with 9 mentions.
Other sources of funding, such as sales revenue, membership fees and long-term grants, are very rare.
The meeting places were also asked about the number of their full-time and voluntary staff. In total:
- 27.93 full-time equivalents (on average, around one full-time post and one part-time worker per meeting places)
- approx. 312 volunteers (on average, around 14 volunteers per meeting places)
On average, there are 11 volunteers for every full-time post.
Issues & demand for support
20 people wrote a free-form comment on their current problems or existing need for support.
By far the most frequently cited challenge was funding (12). Grants for specific activities, fees or equipment would already be of great help to the meeting places.
6, or 7, respondents cited a lack of or unsuitable premises, a shortage of new volunteers or a lack of full-time staff, as well as difficult application processes or barriers to participation and a lack of long-term planning certainty as problems.
Satisfaction with the administration
Overall, there is a high level of satisfaction amongst respondents with both their local council and the district administration.
However, three respondents expressed a desire for greater cooperation between all stakeholders in order to sustain the existing services in the long term.
- “At present, the focus is on raising the profile within the local community and fostering a constructive dialogue on the importance of community spaces.” (direct translation of original quote)
- “Close cooperation with the local authority, schools, nurseries, social services and other organisations helps to further develop services in line with needs and to reach people at an early stage.” (direct translation of original quote)
- “It would be good if there were a stakeholder group (local authority, district, aid organisations, cooperation partners) that could manage the demand for services and the use of buildings, and organise them in a way that is sustainable for the future.” (translated and slightly adapted for purposes of anonymisation)
