Weltkindertag-Straßenfest Marzahn-Hellersdorf

Children's Day in Berlin

Children's Day is celebrated in Germany on September 20 — unlike UN Children's Day (November 20). It commemorates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 and the right of all children to protection, development, and participation. In Marzahn-Hellersdorf, the largest district of Berlin in terms of area in the northeast of the city, civil society uses the day for its own street festival.

What happens at Haus Babylon

The venue is Haus Babylon on Stephan-Born-Straße — a meeting center of the Babel e.V. association, which has been providing intercultural services in the district for decades. For four hours, hands-on stations are set up in front of the house and in the courtyard: face painting, craft tables, movement games, music, small theater performances. Associations, initiatives, and schools from the district present their work on children's rights — Awo, Youth Welfare Office, Kita providers, migrant self-organizations.

Children's rights as the common thread

What distinguishes the street festival from a regular children's festival is the political framework: children's rights are not a decorative accessory, but the program. Playful activities convey topics such as the right to privacy, the right to non-violent upbringing, and the right to participation. The format is low-threshold but clear in its content — and is aimed at families from the entire district, which, with over 270,000 inhabitants, has a diverse population structure (large Russian-speaking, Vietnamese-speaking, and Arabic-speaking communities alongside the long-term Berlin residents).

Marzahn-Hellersdorf in transition

The district is often reduced to its prefabricated housing estates — this does not do justice to reality. Marzahn-Hellersdorf has the largest gardens in the world (Erholungspark Marzahn with the Gärten der Welt), the FEZ-Berlin (Europe's largest children's and youth center), a vibrant art scene on Alice-Salomon-Platz, and committed neighborhood initiatives like Babel e.V. The Children's Day street festival is part of this civil society fabric.