Since 2025 the VFnuK has started partnering with the Nachbarschaftshaus Urbanstraße e.V within the framework of the SWITCH project bringing sustainable food practices into the heart of neighborhood-based social and cultural work in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
For decades, Nachbarschaftshaus Urbanstraße e.V. has been a key local actor creating spaces for participation, integration, and community self-organization. Through its neighborhood center in Urbanstraße, the Mehrgenerationenhaus in Gneisenaustraße, the RuDi Nachbarschaftshaus at Rudolfplatz, and the neighborhood garden near Tempelhofer Feld, the organization reaches a wide and diverse audience from long-term residents and newly arrived neighbors, to families, young people, and seniors. Its open-door approach, low-threshold activities, and close cooperation with grassroots initiatives make it a vibrant hub for social exchange and civic engagement.
Food and cooking play a special role in its work. Regular community cooking events and “Küche für alle” (kufa) formats create welcoming spaces where people meet across cultural and social differences. These community kitchens are not only about sharing meals, but also about sharing knowledge, resources, and responsibility.
The new cooperation with the SWITCH Berlin-Brandenburg HUB strengthens this practice by introducing the principles of the SWITCH Diet, improving kitchen organization and hygiene standards, and expanding sustainable and local sourcing. Ingredients for the kufas are increasingly procured through foodsharing structures and community-supported agriculture (CSA), in collaboration with the Gemüse-Syndikat and Auenhof Havelland in Brandenburg.
By embedding these changes in neighborhood spaces, the SWITCH Berlin HUB helps make sustainable food practices accessible, affordable, and participatory. The cooperation with the NHU shows how community centers involved in community cooking can become key places for a just and ecological urban transformation.