At the invitation of Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel, a 240-page publication entitled "Focus on the Family" will be presented to more than 300 expected guests from all areas of public life to take stock of the child and family-friendly learning city.

With this stocktaking, Klingebiel is launching the "Promoting children and supporting families" initiative, which is geared towards the strategic goal of making Salzgitter one of the most child and family-friendly cities in Germany by 2015. This will be made visible to the outside world with the city's newly developed logo, which will shape its visual appearance in future as part of a broad-based city marketing concept.

"Implementing my vision," emphasizes Klingebiel in his foreword to the survey, "is not easy." Child and family friendliness is a combination of various factors. Individual, isolated approaches and aspects only have a limited effect on their own. In order to be successful, holistic solutions are needed that do better justice to the diverse individual life situations.

With the support of politicians, the population, clubs, associations and organizations in Salzgitter as well as the business community, he has already been able to achieve a great deal together with the city council. Klingebiel recalls

• the establishment of the Department for Child and Family Friendliness on January 1, 2008, the first in Lower Saxony
• the 73 million euro ten-year school renovation program without further funding from the Economic Stimulus Package II
• the exemption from fees for kindergarten attendance for all children from the age of 3, the first major city in Lower Saxony to do so
• the introduction of a new trend-setting youth and sports promotion program
• the launch of the BONA SZ project for vocational orientation and securing young talent for industrial, technical and scientific professions.

"Further steps are to follow as part of an overall concept," announced Klingebiel. The trend of shrinking and ageing in Germany and Salzgitter must be counteracted in the long term. He wants to use a strong family policy to improve living and housing conditions so that more young people decide to live in Salzgitter and have children.

Sylvia Fiedler, the city's representative for children and families, believes that the current survey confirms her conviction that "Salzgitter has a lot to offer children and families." The publication is intended to serve as a source of information and guidance for the population. Starting with a brief portrait of the city, through childcare, education, culture, housing, sport and health, to topics such as ageing and being active, safety, the economy and brief descriptions of facilities, topics are described that provide a practical overview of offers and initiatives.

Fiedler assures that the goal formulated by the Lord Mayor of Salzgitter of becoming a child- and family-friendly learning city can be achieved "if everyone makes the initiative under the guiding principle of 'promoting children - supporting families' a matter close to their hearts." In this way, it will be possible to create optimal conditions for everyone in Salzgitter with the available resources. The second part of Klingebiel's work program will derive further concrete projects from the data collection, which will be developed in working groups on specific topics.

After the welcoming address by Lord Mayor Klingebiel, there will also be a colorful supporting program for the presentation of the survey and the city's new visual image in the Council Chamber. The first advertising media and articles with the logo "Salzgitter. Promoting children and supporting families" - including a completely designed KVG bus on the town hall square - and the young orchestra of the Salzgitter music school and the Söltersche Kinder choir will provide the musical backdrop. "And there should be time for communication with each other," Klingebiel makes clear, "it is once again a good opportunity for those involved in child and family friendliness to intensify contact."