In most cases, we are very sorry but we can not help You or Your relatives coming to Germany.
This has some reasons:
Today, there are only two ways to come to Germany legally.
First way:
If You are a father, mother or young (not adult) child already living in Germany, You can apply for asylum. If You get asylum (and not only subsidiary protection like 80% do), You can try to get your husband, wife or young children in (or Your parents if You are a child yourself). This takes very long (we heard it takes 18 months to get a visum at a german embassy at the moment), and we are not working in this issue and can not help or advice You – but it may work for You nevertheless.
Second way:
If You are living in a part of Germany with a so-called „Landesaufnahmeprogramm“ (at this time that’s Berlin, Brandenburg, Thüringen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein) AND if You are registered in this place at least one whole year, it may be possible to get close relatives in to Germany with a visum. Close relatives means: Parents, grandparents, brothers (with wife and not-adult children), sisters (with husband and not-adult sisters). All other relatives like uncles, cousins etc will not get a visum.
All relatives have to be in Syria or the neighbour states (not Greek).
ALL other people will not get a visum from the german authorities. Also, if You are living in places like Bayern, Sachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Baden-Württemberg, Niedersachsen etc. where there are no Landesaufnahmeprogramme at this time, You can not get a visum for the this close relatives (excepting own husbands, own young children and own wifes as mentioned above as first way).
If You are living in Berlin, Brandenburg, Thüringen, Hamburg, Sachsen, or Schleswig-Holstein for a year or longer, You need someone who signs a contract with the autorities for each single person („Verpflichtungserklärung“). In this, he or she declares to pay all costs of living and rent for five years. This has to be someone from Germany, and he or she has to earn at least 2.160 € netto a month (if not married; otherwise 800 € more and 400 € more for each child). In Brandenburg, the refugee living here also has to have a job himself earning at least 1.079 € netto a month.
In some rare cases, we can help finding a person signing a „Verpflichtungserklärung“ and to make it easier for them to sign, we can pay the costs of living and rent. But we are just a small private initiative and need lot of donations to do so. For this reason, we can not help more than a few people a month (while at the same time we are getting 15 or more asks for help a DAY or some 500 a month). We decided that we concentrate on help for single people (like the old mother left allone in Aleppo or the sister with a baby too young for the way through the mediterranean sea) rather than whole families („My brother, his wife in children“). We are trying to re-unite broken families Groups of more than three or for relatives are often too big to handle, because it takes too long to find enough people to sign. Also, we can not help people who are already outside of Syria. Life in refugees camps in Turkey, Lebanon or Jordania is maybe horrible, too – but bombing, raping and the danger of getting caught to the army are worse in Syria, so we concentrate on this.
We can not answer every single ask for help. So we are working with an internet form, the „Angehörigenfragebogen“, where the person trying to get our help has to fill out some questions. This form can be directly HERE. Questions are in german, but can be filled out in english if neccessary. Try to get a german friend for help with it. And prepare to load up the passports of Your relatives, too.
Still we will have to say NO to 99 % of all. Every single case is sad and unbearable and most of all cases need urgent help – but we are too small to help everyone. We are very sad about this.
So all in all: If You are in Berlin or Brandenburg longer than a year and thinking that we maybe could help You, please prepare all documents and visit our form. If You are NOT, don’t expect our help or advice, because we are only working voluntary and are strictly concentrating on this single thing that we do. We decided to help a few very much – instead of helping everyone just a bit. Thank You for Your understanding and good luck.
