Exam stress, research paper deadlines, lovesickness, difficulty finding a place to live, and a tight student budget – these are worries that can give Freiburg students sleepless nights. But thankfully there’s a place for them to turn to: the “Nightline,” an anonymous telephone and email helpline staffed by students trained in active listening.

Since March 2002, the association “Nightline Freiburg e.V.” has offered University of Freiburg students a telephone hotline between the hours of 8 and midnight. It is available to help students with problems of all kinds. All calls remain anonymous and are treated confidentially. The Nightline has also offered the same services via email since 2014.
The 40 student volunteers help their classmates by listening to their problems. New volunteers complete an extensive training course based on Carl Rogers’s active listening approach. It emphasizes congruence with the caller, empathy, and esteem. The callers help themselves during the conversation just by putting their problems into words. This is the first step to resolving the issue. If the problems are too serious for the student volunteers, they can refer the callers to professional institutions and counseling services. The volunteers receive further training and supervision from external psychologists and employees of the university’s Institute of Psychology.
The Nightline received the Alumni Prize for Social Involvement in 2012. This year the board of directors of Alumni Freiburg e.V. is asking for donations to enable this institution to continue helping Freiburg students with their problems. Although the Nightline receives funding from the university and the student organization Studierendenwerk, it is dependent on donations to cover expenses for advertising, weekend training courses, and technical equipment for its telephone center.
Please help our students to help other students!
Visit www.alumni-foerdern.uni-freiburg.de/nightline.html for more information on this student project.
Please donate to:
Alumni Freiburg e.V.
Sparkasse Freiburg – Nördlicher Breisgau
Account no.: 14 001 600
Bank code no.: 680 501 01
BIC: FRSPDE 66
IBAN: DE 92680501010014001600