About Zeitschrift der Straße

Zeitschrift der Straße

The Zeitschrift der Straße is Bremen's street paper, a social magazine sold mainly by homeless people on the streets of Bremen and Bremerhaven. Founded in 2010 as a media, social and educational project and published since February 2011 by the Verein für Innere Mission in Bremen, it is produced through an unusual collaboration of students, homeless vendors, journalists, social workers and university lecturers. Each issue is dedicated to a single street in Bremen or Bremerhaven, combining local reporting with high-end design that has won international awards. Appearing ten times a year, it gives its vendors both an income and a point of contact with the wider public.

Overview

The Zeitschrift der Straße, styled DIE ZEITSCHRIFT DER STRASSE, is the street magazine of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, with a pronounced local focus. It is published by the Verein für Innere Mission in Bremen, a Protestant welfare organization, in partnership with the Gesellschaft für integrative soziale Beratung und Unterstützung (GISBU) in Bremerhaven, the Hochschule für Künste Bremen and the Hochschule Bremerhaven. The magazine's offices are located in Bremen's Bahnhofsvorstadt district, at Auf der Brake 10-12.

The publication appears ten times a year and has a sold circulation of 8,000 copies. Its print edition carries the ISSN 2192-7324. The editorial leadership is in the hands of Jan-Paul Koopmann and Karolina Meyer-Schilf as editors-in-chief. The magazine is a member of the International Network of Street Papers (INSP), the global association of street-paper publishers founded on the initiative of London's Big Issue.

What distinguishes the Zeitschrift der Straße from a conventional magazine is its dual character as a journalistic product and a social project. It is sold on the streets of Bremen and Bremerhaven, mainly by homeless people, who earn money from each copy sold. At the same time, it is produced as a collaborative project: students of journalism and design, homeless people, journalists, people with addiction problems, volunteers, streetworkers and university lecturers all contribute to its making. The concept, the project and the magazine's design have received multiple national and international awards, including honors for social entrepreneurship, education and design.

History

The Zeitschrift der Straße was founded in 2010 as a media, social and learning project, and its first issue appeared in February 2011. The initiative grew out of a team that had been working together since the summer of 2010: staff from social institutions including the Verein für Innere Mission in Bremen and the GISBU in Bremerhaven, committed students and professors from the Hochschule für Künste Bremen and the Hochschule Bremerhaven, and a freelance journalist. The project was conceived from the start as something more than a newspaper: it was to be a social enterprise that would improve the living conditions of homeless and other needy people by giving them the opportunity to pursue a regular activity, stay in contact with society and earn a small income.

The editorial concept was unusual and immediately distinctive. Each issue of the magazine is devoted to a single street in Bremen or Bremerhaven. Following the guiding principle of "Sehen, Hören, Schreiben" (see, hear, write), the editors document, research, interpret and comment on their observations, circling around places, opening up new perspectives on them and delivering unexpected insights. The aim, in the philosophy of its makers, is to bring people closer to their city and their neighborhoods.

From the beginning, the magazine set itself apart through its design. While the journalism students wrote the texts, design students from the Hochschule für Künste Bremen supplied the layout and images, and marketing students from the Hochschule Bremerhaven handled the marketing. The result was a street paper with a high-quality look and innovative design that stood out markedly from other street magazines. The design community took notice quickly: at the end of 2011, the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) in London awarded the student-designed magazine an Award of Excellence, and at the beginning of 2012 the Type Directors Club (TDC) in New York City honored the Bremen street paper with three awards. The magazine has since been repeatedly recognized with national and international prizes for social entrepreneurship, education and design.

Content and Sections

Every issue of the Zeitschrift der Straße is built around a single street. The editors choose one street in Bremen or Bremerhaven and devote the entire magazine to it: its history, its buildings, its shops and pubs, and above all its people. The reporting combines documentary observation with interviews, portraits and commentary, following the principle of seeing, hearing and writing. The result is a form of hyperlocal journalism that treats even an unremarkable residential street as worthy of sustained attention.

The content mix reflects the magazine's social mission. Alongside the street features, the magazine gives space to the voices of the vendors themselves. A seller's blog on the magazine's website has allowed vendors to post regularly about their everyday experiences on the street; one of the best-known contributors has been Andreas Kuhlmann, a well-known street vendor in Bremen who has written about good and bad days on the streets of the city. This direct participation of homeless people in the editorial product goes beyond the sales relationship and makes the magazine a platform for people who are otherwise rarely heard in the media.

The magazine also provides practical social information. Its digital social city map is conceived as a service for people seeking help, for those who want to engage socially and for the magazine's readers, collecting information about social services and points of contact in Bremen. The print issues combine the street portraits with reports on social topics, cultural life and the concerns of people living on the margins of society. The design, produced by design students, remains a hallmark of the publication: each issue is conceived as a visual whole, with photography and typography that have repeatedly won the recognition of international design juries.

Publisher and Organization

The Zeitschrift der Straße is published by the Verein für Innere Mission in Bremen, one of the city's established Protestant welfare organizations. The publisher works in partnership with the GISBU, the society for integrative social counseling and support in Bremerhaven, and with the academic partners, the Hochschule für Künste Bremen and the Hochschule Bremerhaven, whose students and lecturers contribute journalism, design and marketing. The editorial office is located at Auf der Brake 10-12 in Bremen's Bahnhofsvorstadt, close to the main station and to the milieus the magazine serves.

The editors-in-chief are Jan-Paul Koopmann and Karolina Meyer-Schilf. The organization around the magazine extends beyond the editorial office: the Freundeskreis, the circle of friends, brings together long-term supporters of the project, including volunteers and regular donors who contribute a monthly membership fee to support the magazine's media, social and educational work. Special newsletters and meetings keep the active and financial supporters in close contact.

The economic model is that of a classic street paper: the magazine is sold by vendors on the street, and each vendor earns money from every copy sold. In the launch phase, the project relied on student sellers to establish the magazine in the market, but the long-term aim has always been to recruit and train homeless vendors, giving them a regular activity and an income. The magazine's membership in the International Network of Street Papers connects it to more than a hundred street-paper publishers in dozens of countries, enabling an exchange of experience, images and ideas across the global street-paper movement.

Digital Presence

The magazine's online home is zeitschrift-der-strasse.de, where it presents the project, its issues and its social mission. The website carries the seller's blog, on which vendors report from their daily lives, and the digital social city map, the service platform for people seeking help and for socially engaged citizens. These digital offerings extend the magazine's social function beyond the printed page: the blog gives vendors a public voice, while the city map collects practical information about help services in Bremen.

Like other street papers, the Zeitschrift der Straße uses its website and social media presence to reach supporters, donors and volunteers, to recruit members for the Freundeskreis and to document the awards and recognition the project has received. The print magazine remains the core product and the source of the vendors' income, but the digital channels serve the project's educational and community-building goals, connecting the street-level social work with a wider public. For a project that defines itself as a media, social and learning enterprise, the combination of a distinctive print magazine, a vendor blog and a social service platform forms a coherent digital and analog ecosystem.