Berlin Actually Runs Two Separate Migrant Sports-Integration Programs, Most Families Only Ever Find One

Two Doors, Not One

If you’ve been told to “just contact the Integration durch Sport program” as a migrant or refugee family in Berlin, that advice is incomplete, because Berlin actually runs two separate efforts with different structures, different target groups, and different ways to actually reach a real person.

The first is the federal program itself. LSB Berlin’s own integration page confirms that “Integration durch Sport” (IdS) has run nationally since 1989, coordinated by the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (DOSB) together with the Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI). In Berlin, it’s implemented by a small, dedicated LSB Berlin team, four full-time sports pedagogues and one mini-job employee, supporting volunteers across every district. Nationwide, IdS works with roughly 1,500 affiliated clubs, and about 900 of those are designated Stützpunktvereine, clubs specifically equipped and funded to run low-barrier offers for people with a migration or refugee background. LSB Berlin’s own recruitment page for new Stützpunktvereine confirms funding runs up to 3,000 euros per individual measure and 6,000 euros per club per year, applied for through DOSB’s own digital funding portal.

The second is Sportbunt, a Berlin-only project with a narrower, sharper focus: people with refugee experience specifically. Sportbunt’s own site places it within Berlin’s Masterplan Integration und Sicherheit and marks its 10th anniversary in 2026, meaning it launched around 2016, in the years right after the refugee arrivals of 2015. Structurally, it works nothing like a searchable database. Its own “Sportangebote für Geflüchtete” page describes a contact-form process: a family submits their preferred sport, district, age, and gender, and one of Sportbunt’s own coaches follows up directly.

Pfeffersport and Oranje Berlin Show What This Looks Like in Practice

Pfeffersport e.V. is Berlin’s clearest, longest-running example of a Stützpunktverein actually doing this work. It’s Berlin’s largest inclusion and grassroots sports club, with more than 5,000 members (about 70 percent children and youth), roughly 300 instructors, and over 50 different sports and movement activities across locations in Prenzlauer Berg, Pankow, Berlin-Mitte, and Kreuzberg. It’s been a designated Stützpunktverein since 2009. Its own “Bunt wie wir” project, described on the club’s site, began in 2013 at a refugee shelter on Mühlenstraße in Pankow, expanded to a shelter on Storkower Straße in 2015, and later added a cooperation at Treskowstraße. Weekly sessions there cover a genuine range of ages: wrestling and play games for 5 to 7 year olds, ball games for 7 to 12 year olds, toddler activities for 2 to 4 year olds, circus skills, football, and a women’s fitness class, funded jointly by LSB Berlin and DOSB. In 2023, a team from the project nicknamed the “Storkies” won first place in a grassroots football league. Families interested in the project contact coordinator Margarete Goj directly at goj@pfeffersport.de.

A second, differently-shaped example is Oranje Berlin e.V., a multicultural football club based in Charlottenburg since 2009. The club describes itself on its own site as “ein multikultureller, multinationaler Fußballverein” fielding more than 20 teams, with a coaching staff drawn from across the world, its own materials list backgrounds including Canada, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Ghana, Turkey, Ukraine, and Japan. Oranje Berlin is named among the clubs featured in Berlin’s own “Integration durch Sport” program materials, alongside Pfeffersport, making it a second concrete, named option beyond the two big coordinating organizations.

Photo by Chris K on Pexels

Beyond Placement: Sportbunt Trains Refugees as Coaches Themselves

Sportbunt’s work goes further than matching families to existing clubs, it also builds new instructors out of the refugee community itself. LSB Berlin’s own report on its February 2024 cohort describes the third round of a school-swimming-trainer training program, run together with the Berliner Schwimm-Verband and funded by LSB Berlin plus Senate administrations for education and for sport. From 70 applications, 20 people (12 men, 8 women) were selected, representing more than a dozen countries including Palestine, South Korea, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Syria, Poland, Uganda, and Nigeria. Sportbunt staff member Bianca Zierenberg-Williamson is quoted describing the group’s own diversity as where “integration takes place quite concretely and practically.” Participants who pass rescue-swimming, first-aid, and teaching requirements receive an official DOSB C-license to teach swimming in Berlin’s twelve school swimming centers, in schools, and in clubs. Sportbunt separately offers free access to broader coaching qualifications, including the C-Lizenz and B-Trainer license, for anyone interested in leading rather than only joining a group.

Finding Any Club, Regardless of Migration Background

Neither IdS nor Sportbunt replaces the basic tool every Berlin family should know about first. Landessportbund Berlin’s Datenbank Sportangebote is a free, searchable database of roughly 900 recreational sports offers citywide, filterable by sport, weekday, and district, with club contact details, addresses, and phone numbers included directly. It’s not migrant-specific, but it’s the fastest way to see what’s actually available near you before deciding whether you need Sportbunt’s more personal coach matching or IdS’s Stützpunktverein consultation.

What Real People Say

There isn’t a large public forum thread specifically comparing IdS and Sportbunt, most families find either program indirectly, through a shelter, a school, or word of mouth, rather than searching for the programs by name. The more revealing pattern shows up in how the organizations describe their own work: LSB Berlin’s swim-trainer cohort report deliberately quotes staff on the value of a genuinely mixed group of trainees rather than presenting the program as one-directional charity, and Pfeffersport’s own materials describe “Bunt wie wir” growing organically out of specific shelter partnerships rather than a top-down rollout. That distinction matters practically: a family’s actual entry point tends to be a specific coach, coordinator, or shelter contact, not a generic hotline.

Step by Step

1. If your family has fled and needs a personal match to a welcoming club, contact your district’s Sportbunt coach directly using the table above, or submit the short form at sportbunt.de/fuer-gefluechtete/sportangebote/.
2. If you want to understand a specific club’s Stützpunktverein status, or you’re asking on behalf of a wider community project, email LSB Berlin’s IdS team at ids@lsb-berlin.de or call 030 30098-521.
3. Search LSB Berlin’s Datenbank Sportangebote first for a general club search, filterable by sport, weekday, and district, regardless of your family’s background.
4. Ask any club directly about a Probetraining (trial session), no German required, this is standard practice at Berlin clubs.
5. If cost is the barrier, apply for the Bildungs- und Teilhabepaket through the office matching your specific benefit, the Jobcenter for Bürgergeld, the Wohngeldstelle for Wohngeld or Kinderzuschlag, the Sozialamt for Sozialhilfe, or the Landesamt für Flüchtlingsangelegenheiten for asylum seeker benefits, covering 15 euros a month toward a child’s club fee.
6. If an adult in your family wants to become a certified coach, not just a member, ask Sportbunt about its next swim-trainer, C-Lizenz, or B-Trainer cohort at sportbunt@lsb-berlin.de.

Compliance Note

This page describes Germany’s federal “Integration durch Sport” program and Berlin’s own Sportbunt project, including named contacts, club examples, and cohort figures, current as of mid-2026. Program contacts, coach assignments, funding availability, and Stützpunktverein status can change, so confirm current details directly with LSB Berlin’s IdS team, Sportbunt, or the specific club before acting on anything here.