A Kurdish candidate for upcoming local elections in Germany has said he hopes to tackle the inequality he sees among the students he teaches
Vasfi Bozkurt is a 32-year-old, German-born Kurd with origins in southeast Turkey. He is a Greens candidate for the cosmopolitan Cologne constituency of Ostheim, Merheim, Neubruck and Hohenberg, part of Germany's Nordrhein-Westfalen region set to go to the polls on September 13.
A schoolteacher of politics for five years, Bozkurt joined the Greens a year ago.
“I studied politics, and I teach it at a school. I see things that are wrong every day, and I want to change them. I joined the Greens a year ago because our ideology matches up. The Greens accept everyone, regardless of their color or religion,” Bozkurt told Rudaw.
His experience with school pupils taught him of the difficulties some of his young students from poorer backgrounds face - difficulties he hopes to ease if he is elected.
“I see students coming to schools without notebooks and pencils. Now there is coronavirus, but they don't have computers [for remote education]. The government has to support these children.”
In a wider bid to tackle the socio-economic inequality he sees at schools, Bozkurt also campaigns for lower rents in Cologne.
Bozkurt launched his campaign on July 31, hoping to win over enough of the constituency's 30,000 or so voters to be elected.
Marvin Schutt, a spokesperson for the Greens, told Rudaw that the Kurdish candidate always has “new ideas.”
“Vasfi is a very young politician and he is always active and has new ideas…As a teacher, he has a good relationship with young people. He has ideas on politics, and knows how to bring them into the fold,” Schutt said.
Nihad Zubeyir, a Kurd living in Cologne, told Rudaw he was "glad to see a Kurdish young man demanding my rights and those of other Kurds.”
German voter Suhayla Boz told Rudaw that Bozkurt left a "kind" first impression.
"That made me read his party’s agenda. The points he made are interesting and important,” she told Rudaw.
https://www.rudaw.net/english/world/15082020
