Roots&Pathways: a Holistic Textile Art Incubator for Migrant Single Mothers
Since 2020, Hildashaus has been a safer space for community-led practice. We are deeply grateful for everything we have built together.
We are currently asking for your support to make our upcoming program Roots&Pathways possible, a project you can read more about below. This comes at a time when the political landscape has shifted. Funding for intersectional feminist initiatives and for culture has been drastically reduced, and what was already difficult due to structural funding barriers that systematically exclude many community-led organisations has now become increasingly restrictive.
Why Roots&Pathways
Roots&Pathways responds directly to wishes and needs voiced in our community, as well as to insights from our long-term work at Hildashaus. The program is designed to lower barriers and enable meaningful and effective participation.
In Germany, inequalities in the labor market are structural, not accidental. While most women in Germany are employed, according to the IAB–BAMF–SOEP Refugee Survey only around 33% of refugee women are able to access work even eight years after living in the country. And for mothers, the gap is even wider. 84% of mothers without a migration background are employed, compared to only 55% of migrant mothers.
These differences are not about lack of motivation, skills, or ambition. Researchers and field-based organizations consistently point to systemic barriers; unpaid care responsibilities, limited access to childcare, language requirements, the non-recognition of qualifications, and racialized discrimination within institutions and the labor market. For single mothers with displacement experiences, these gaps translate into long-term financial insecurity, restricted mobility, and reduced social participation; despite the skills, experience, and aspirations many women bring with them.
Our Program
Roots&Pathways is a 12-month, holistic, trauma-informed, and community-based textile art incubator designed for single mothers aged 40+ with displacement experiences in Berlin. The program will accompany 15 participants through a carefully co-designed journey that places wellbeing first. Through multilingual facilitation, visual tools, peer mentorship, and real-life role-play, the program supports embodied learning and confidence-building in everyday German.
Textile art functions as the core practice of the program, supporting both creative development and first steps toward income generation. It honors participants’ cultural heritage while enabling them to develop project ideas, create initial prototypes, and explore sustainable creative livelihoods.
Alongside creative practice, the program includes wellbeing activities, system-navigation workshops, soft-skills development, business capacity building, individual mentoring, and free childcare as integral components of the program structure.
Why We Are Fundraising
To make Roots&Pathways possible, we are raising €7,300 and your contribution ensures full participation for single mothers and supports their first steps toward sustainable creative livelihoods. It also helps us navigate and challenge the structural funding barriers that continue to exclude many community-led organisations.
Hildashaus’ long-standing experience shows the impact of this approach. Our programs consistently reach over 95% attendance and are sustained by trust and strong community word-of-mouth. Participants often share that our spaces genuinely work for them and with them.
Support Roots & Pathways
By supporting and sharing our crowdfunding campaign, you help strengthen community-led structures and contribute to more just and sustainable ways of working together.
Roots & Pathways is about more than a program.
It is about dignity, belonging, and the right to imagine and build pathways together.
Thank you for standing with the Hildashaus community.
