The German Studentenwerke

The Studentenwerk is responsible for the following: student meals, housing, financial support, child care, counseling as well as cultural activities.

In many countries these services are supplied by the schools themselves or by the student unions. The German Studentenwerke however are independent of the schools and legally autonomous. Many Studentenwerke are, like the AKAFÖ, responsible for many schools at different locations.

Akademisches Förderungswerk (AKAFÖ)

The AKAFÖ (literally translated: Academic Furtherance Establishment) oversees almost 50,000 students at the four Bochum universities, the Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Sciences and its satellite schools in Recklinghausen and Bocholt. And all of this for 40 years now.

The AKAFÖ offers:

• Cafeterias, which daily provide several thousand students and staff members with selected meals
• 14 Snack bars with a varied selection of food and drinks for in between meals
• 19 Housing opportunities for all students, the dormitory "House Sumperkamp" with special housing for the handicapped; numerous student apartments in residential buildings– altogether there are approximately 4,300 rooms available
• The culture office boSKop, which offers cultural events like Theater, Concerts or Workshops (Dancing, Music etc.)
• Social and handicapped counseling for handicapped and chronically ill students
• A day care center for about 100 children from infants to 12 years of age, where they are cared for in mixed age groups
• Advisory  for international students
• Tutors Office and in house tutors look after foreign freshmen particularly in the AKAFÖ-housing

The AKAFÖ is a statutory body. That means, among other things, that in addition to an executive board there is an administrative board that decides what is done. This administrative board consists of members of university statutory groups and of the AKAFÖ. The group of students in this board makes up the biggest fraction, and the current chairperson is a student. Every student can become a member of the administrative board. If you want to have part in the shaping of things, get in touch with the student parliament – here the student members are elected.