Federal Environment Ministry State Secretary Jürgen Becker and Federal Foreign Office Director for the United Nations and Human Rights Rüdiger König today inaugurated the new Internationale Kindertagesstätte (international child care centre) in Bonn. The bilingual all-day centre catering for between 110 and 120 children is just a stone’s throw from the UN campus. The centre has been built by the Institute for Federal Real Estate. The inauguration was attended by representatives of the Institute, the United Nations (UN), the City of Bonn and Arbeiterwohlfahrt Bonn/Rhein-Sieg (AWO), which will run the centre.
As the opening of the new centre shows, the German Government is serious about improving child care facilities for UN employees in the city. The centre will provide care for children from four months up to school age. Over half the places are reserved for the children of UN employees; the rest will go to children whose parents work for other organisations with a predominantly international focus. “The new international child care centre is a further important enhancement of Bonn’s status as a permanent UN location,” State Secretary Becker pointed out. Rüdiger König emphasised: “We want UN staff and their families to feel good about life in our UN city of Bonn. An international child care centre is both a long-standing wish and an absolute necessity.”
The new centre has been designed in line with green building principles. Its solid wood construction is not only resource-efficient but also stores CO2; its outer shell is insulated to virtually passive house standard. Heat and energy are supplied by a technically sophisticated system that uses solar panels, heat recovery ventilation and geothermal energy. Hydropower supplies green electricity.
The new child care centre at Heussallee 30 has been built on the very same site on which years ago, when Bonn was the Federal capital, a child care centre for the staff of the German Bundestag was planned.