Photos taken in Berlin by Zhihao Zhong

How I Learned to Interact with The Unhoused and Those Seeking Financial Support

Education includes lessons learned from the people and how we see others are treated. Zhihao learned from unhoused and donation-seekers in Germany.
Germany, Western Europe

Story by Zhihao Zhong. Edited by Melaina Dyck
Published on November 26, 2021. Reading time: 5 minutes

This story is also available in de it



“It’s not a problem to not have money for me, but it is not nice to ignore me,” said a donation seeker when I was talking with them.[1] Just before we spoke, I had been talking with my friends. Because it is common practice in the societies my friends lived in prior to Berlin and because of language barriers, my friends did not engage further with this person who approached us. 

This person asked me to look at the videos from their phone. It turns out they only wanted to share pictures and tell me and my friends about the birds living in the city. They wanted to collect financial support to protect the birds. I thought it was random but also nice to have a transient connection with someone who may not always have the attention they deserve. 

In China, where I am from, people are generally discouraged from responding to people who seek financial support on the street, and my few attempts to help unfortunately ended up with some trouble and unpleasant doubts about myself. Some tried to extort money from me, and others seemed to exploit me by guilt-trapping. However, in the past two years living in Berlin, I have noticed that many people talk to those who sell newspapers on the train as a way to make money. I also noticed that people in Berlin would care for those who were unhoused residing on the street and those who sought donations at the train station. Some Berliners ask whether they could get some food for these people. Others would offer to call the ‘cold bus’ (Kältebus) that can take people to a warm shelter. Many people also choose to collect and donate clothes or just money.

I started to think a lot about such interactions with strangers. The first time I delved deeply into this was when I learned about homelessness when listening to a podcast for  my German class. The podcast episode was an interview with a man who had recently moved to temporary public housing in Munich, Germany. The interviewee had moved to Munich because of work, but things did not work out with his partner because of the long-distance so they separated. He did not get along well with his colleagues and eventually lost his job. The rent in Munich was too high and he could not afford it after being laid off. That’s how he ended up living on the street. 

His story was unfortunate and also very real. I reflected that his experiences could easily happen to anyone. We all could be put in that situation--moving away from loved ones, losing our relationships and our jobs. I think what makes a story end differently is whether a person has a cushion to fall back on if things do not turn out as expected. Some of us enjoy abundant resources that could support us when we are in need but that, unfortunately, is not the case for everyone.That podcast was a lesson for me to better understand people who ask for donations on the street and who are unhoused. It was a reminder of how we are all the same instead of ‘us and them.’ 

Before anyone raises this, I already am thinking about another voice: the people who will respond, “they don’t really need the money; they could work for it; this could even be their lucrative business…”

But, I ask, is it really worth risking not helping those in urgent need? If it were me on the street, would I want to be moralized for asking for help even though I was already experiencing hardship? We do not know the history of the person. How much would it hurt to give a small donation, or simply kind eye contact and perhaps a short conversation?

I know it is easier said than done. A while ago at the station near home, I saw a woman with a distorted face walking slowly with a crutch. Her clothes didn’t seem clean. I approached and asked whether she needed help and gave her a euro. She then talked more about things that my German was not advanced enough to understand and she began weeping. I could only tell her “that must be awful” and “I am sorry.” But I guessed that she just needed someone to listen and I hoped that she would also realize that people do care.

When someone approaches me on the street, I still struggle, silently reasoning with myself about whether I should help this time. I always wonder why I would find it difficult to step up and help. But, as I reflect on lessons from these encounters, I think that at least I could always try to understand or try to help.


[1] They/them pronouns are used because the person’s gender was not identified.


How does this story make you feel?

Follow-up

Do you have any questions after reading this story? Do you want to follow-up on what you've just read? Get in touch with our team to learn more! Send an email to
[email protected].

Talk about this Story

Please enable cookies to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Share your story

Every story we share is another perspective on a complex topic like migration, gender and sexuality or liberation. We believe that these personal stories are important to better understand what's going on in our globalised society - and to better understand each other. That's because we are convinced that the more we understand about each other, the easier it will be for us to really talk to one another, to get closer - and to maybe find solutions for the issues that affect us all. 

Do you want to share your story? Then have a look here for more info.

Share Your Story

Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Stay up to date with new stories on Correspondents of the World by subscribing to our monthly newsletter:

* indicates required

Follow us on Social Media

Zhihao Zhong

Zhihao Zhong

Zhihao Zhong (he/they) studies public policy in Berlin. He previously worked at a Chinese village school for two years and enjoyed his close contact with the nature there. Zhihao can’t take their eyes off feminism and intersectionality, but you may buy them off with good food or animals.

Topic: Education




Get involved

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

Share Your Story

Community Worldwide

Correspondents of the World is not just this website, but also a great community of people from all over the world. While face-to-face meetings are difficult at the moment, our Facebook Community Group is THE place to be to meet other people invested in Correspondents of the World. We are currently running a series of online-tea talks to get to know each other better.

Join Our Community

EXPLORE TOPIC Education

Global Issues Through Local Eyes

We are Correspondents of the World, an online platform where people from all over the world share their personal stories in relation to global development. We try to collect stories from people of all ages and genders, people with different social and religious backgrounds and people with all kinds of political opinions in order to get a fuller picture of what is going on behind the big news.

Our Correspondents

At Correspondents of the World we invite everyone to share their own story. This means we don't have professional writers or skilled interviewers. We believe that this approach offers a whole new perspective on topics we normally only read about in the news - if at all. If you would like to share your story, you can find more info here.

Share Your Story

Our Editors

We acknowledge that the stories we collect will necessarily be biased. But so is news. Believing in the power of the narrative, our growing team of awesome editors helps correspondents to make sure that their story is strictly about their personal experience - and let that speak for itself.

Become an Editor

Vision

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

View Our Full Vision & Mission Statement

Topics

We believe in quality over quantity. To give ourselves a focus, we started out to collect personal stories that relate to our correspondents' experiences with six different global topics. However, these topics were selected to increase the likelihood that the stories of different correspondents will cover the same issues and therefore illuminate these issues from different perspectives - and not to exclude any stories. If you have a personal story relating to a global issue that's not covered by our topics, please still reach out to us! We definitely have some blind spots and are happy to revise our focus and introduce new topics at any point in time. 

Environment

Discussions about the environment often center on grim, impersonal figures. Among the numbers and warnings, it is easy to forget that all of these statistics actually also affect us - in very different ways. We believe that in order to understand the immensity of environmental topics and global climate change, we need the personal stories of our correspondents.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the assumption of a "normal". Unmet expectations of what is normal are a world-wide cause for violence. We hope that the stories of our correspondents will help us to better understand the effects of global developments related to gender and sexuality, and to reveal outdated concepts that have been reinforced for centuries.

Migration

Our correspondents write about migration because it is a deeply personal topic that is often dehumanized. People quickly become foreigners, refugees - a "they". But: we have always been migrating, and we always will. For millions of different reasons. By sharing personal stories about migration, we hope to re-humanize this global topic.

Liberation

We want to support the demand for justice by spotlighting the personal stories of people who seek liberation in all its different forms. Our correspondents share their individual experiences in creating equality. We hope that for some this will be an encouragement to continue their own struggle against inequality and oppression - and for some an encouragement to get involved.

Education

Education is the newest addition to our themes. We believe that education, not only formal but also informal, is one of the core aspects of just and equal society as well as social change. Our correspondents share their experiences and confrontations about educational inequalities, accessibility issues and influence of societal norms and structures. 

Corona Virus

2020 is a year different from others before - not least because of the Corona pandemic. The worldwide spread of a highly contagious virus is something that affects all of us in very different ways. To get a better picture of how the pandemic's plethora of explicit and implicit consequences influences our everyday life, we share lockdown stories from correspondents all over the world.

Growing Fast

Although we started just over a year ago, Correspondents of the World has a quickly growing community of correspondents - and a dedicated team of editors, translators and country managers.

94

Correspondents

113

Stories

57

Countries

433

Translations

Contact

Correspondents of the World is as much a community as an online platform. Please feel free to contact us for whatever reason!

Message Us

Message on WhatsApp

Call Us

Joost: +31 6 30273938