Family Affairs Minister Josefine Paul congratulates the municipalities: “I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the six winning municipalities. My thanks go to all participating cities and towns that presented compelling proposals. This shows how important it is to our municipalities to launch new ideas and initiatives to promote family-friendliness while also focusing on the diversity of families.”
Under this motto, municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia were able to participate for the first time in 2024 in the call for entries for the “Family-Friendly Municipality” state award presented by the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Family Affairs. Six municipalities particularly impressed a jury of experts from academia and politics with their diverse range of family-friendly initiatives and were honored as “Family-Friendly Municipalities.” Brief profiles of the award-winning municipalities offer an initial glimpse into their family-friendly concepts and innovative individual projects and can serve as a source of inspiration.
North Rhine-Westphalia is a family-friendly state, and local municipalities play a crucial role in making it so. Whether in a large city, a medium-sized city, a small town, or a rural community—family-friendliness is something you can experience firsthand where you live.
A total of 34 municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia applied for the state award, submitting applications that were, in some cases, elaborately designed. The district of Düren and the city of Hamm (in the large city category), the cities of Brühl and Gladbeck (in the medium-sized city category), as well as the small town of Windeck and the rural community of Dörentrup were honored with the award as particularly diverse “Family-Friendly Communities 2024.” Among other things, they impressed the judges with family-friendly transportation projects, an open, intergenerational village community, and initiatives to encourage families to move to their communities.
The winning municipalities received the award, each accompanied by prize money of 10,000 euros, during a festive awards ceremony on December 12, 2024.
Being family-friendly can take many different forms. The following pages introduce the six award-winning municipalities and provide a glimpse into the variety of services they offer.
A jury composed of members from the academic and political communities decided on the recipient of the state award. The jury consisted of:
The “Family-Friendly Municipality” state award is intended to raise awareness of municipalities’ commitment to family-friendliness. This helps highlight opportunities for municipalities in similar situations, allowing best practices to spread beyond individual municipalities.
All municipalities with existing family-friendly initiatives or innovative individual projects—which are integrated into the municipal mission statement and align with the motto “We Embrace Diversity”—were eligible to apply. To enable small and medium-sized municipalities to participate in the state award, the administrative burden of the application process was deliberately kept to a minimum.
The plan is for the call for entries for the state award to take place every two years in the future, with each edition focusing on a different thematic priority within the context of family-friendliness.
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