Berlin and Brandenburg

Just last week, we launched our new website for the Esperanto Association of Berlin and Brandenburg (EABB). As a quick geography lesson, Germany is made up of 16 federal states of which due to its population, Berlin is one of these federal states. Brandenburg is a federal state which curiously completely surrounds Berlin. Due to this political phenomenon, many local associations support both of these regions in their activities.

I want to present this, because I’m proud of our accomplishments and would like to show it off to the rest of the world, and because I think it could give you some inspiration to create or improve the local Esperanto website where you live. You can see local websites for Esperanto groups in the USA. We developed it in WordPress, so that we could have a team of people who could edit the website at any time to update it with news about current activities. In any small organization, the webmaster does not always have spare time due to vacation or professional activities, so we wanted to make sure the website wasn’t dependent on any one person.

New Esperanto website for Berlin

My main goal with the new website was to help visitors of Berlin and foreign Esperanto speakers to be able to easily see what’s currently happening here. That means whether they are looking to attend a large event, visit a small group or participate in an Esperanto course, we want this information to be available at the simple click of a mouse. This way people can plan their visits better and new residents can quickly and easily get involved with the community. I kept hearing stories of foreign Esperanto speakers who’ve moved to Berlin and couldn’t understand the structure of activities here.

While we have eight active Esperanto groups (!!) in Berlin and Brandenburg, when I first moved to Berlin I had trouble discovering information about them. Gandhi says to “be the change you want in the world,” so I joined the EABB board and am working to modernize the flow of information to our members. People should be able to get their information the way they want, whether that be a website, email, RSS, Facebook, Twitter or postal mail.

How active is the group in your region? Have you tried to contact Esperanto speakers nearby? Even if you’re just a beginner, I would highly encourage you to seek out other people learning and speaking Esperanto in your area. Just knowing one other person near you, can be a huge help in giving you the motivation to keep going! Is there any way you could improve your region’s activities? In any case, What Esperanto activities are happening where you live? Just leave a comment and let me know… I’d love to hear from you!