Tour I: German Mayors and Not-So-Redeeming Moments

tour i: Let me highlight a few redeeming and not-so-redeeming moments of the tour, according to Brandon Sun. I should say at the outset there were more inspiring responses than dispiriting ones. It was an MRI scan of a country facing and coping with major issues arising from the surge of nearly a million refugees who are settling in after Chancellor Angela Merkel open-border response to the humanitarian crisis.I am continuing my participation with the Robert Bosch Academy flagship program, the Richard von Weizsacker Fellowship, to examine the issue of global refugee migration. There was the optimistic, "can-do" attitude of several German mayors in large cities and smaller communities who were handling the local refugee settlement with aplomb and effectiveness. Vision is an apt descriptor for the family-owned high-tech firm Lapp Grupe in Stuttgart, which showed us around a training centre where young refugees from Syria, Eritrea, Iran and Cameroon were learning a trade in the expanding world of information technology. The warmth of many volunteers from church groups such as Caritas, the Catholic agency, who were reaching out to help the newcomers get a toehold in a new society, and the neighbourhood sports officials running a soccer camp for Syrian refugee kids, was heartwarming, showing good people come to the fore in a time of need. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.