On April 22, 2017 the Lions Club International celebrated its 100th anniversary in Bremen with guests from Poland and Macedonia and with a ceremony in the upper town hall. On the same day the Lions Club Cosmopolitan organized the 1st COSMO Night at the Atlantik Grand Hotel and decided to donate the proceeds of the tombola to the association XENOS.
The symbolic cheque of 1,000 euros was handed over festively. Professor Yasemin Karakaşoğlu, president of XENOS e.V., expressed her great thanks to the cosmopolitans. The money is passed on one-to-one to international students who find themselves in an acute financial emergency through no fault of their own.
For more than 30 years, XENOS e. V. has been helping around 20 students every year, for example if their support from home is discontinued due to the turmoil of war in their home country or if a family illness requires a costly flight home. XENOS e. V. helps to overcome such emergencies so that the completion of the studies becomes possible.
The Bremer Lions club Cosmopolitan is the youngest Lions club in Bremen. It wants to promote “the encounter of people of different origins and cultures in Bremen” and network them with each other. The club organizes events and cooperates with other clubs, organizations and institutions, now also with XENOS.
The work of XENOS e.V. is in line with the goals of the Lions Club Cosmopolitan, for whom intercultural exchange and mutual understanding are particularly important. When individual club members had gotten to know the work of XENOS e. V. through contact with the University and the Bremen University of Applied Sciences, it quickly became evident that these were two partners whose activities complement each other quite well.