The small town of Langen (Hessen) was the first of all the townships in the county of Offenbach to be granted a certificate for being a great place for white-collar workers to live ( Zertifikat Ausgezeichneter Wohnort für Fach- und Führungskräfte). This is to certify that the town puts a lot of effort into making all those white collar workers from all over the world feel at home. Besides providing high quality living quarters Langen also offers excellent good and fast access to the surrounding towns and cities of Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Offenbach as well as a high nunmber of attractive jobs at the Paul-Ehrlich Institute where all medicines are tested before they are approved to got to the German market, or internationalen companies many of which are part of a japanese corporation.
Welcome Experts for White Collar Workers
Dr. Monika Lubitz has lived in Langen for almost 10 years before moving to Dietzenbach (10 kms distance). During that time she held her first course in Japanes for young fans of comics (manga) and also initiated a group at the local mothers‘ center for japanese mothers and their young children. Even today she still works closely with some of the Japanese companies in Langen.
Now she has been nominated to be among the Welcome Experts (Ernennung zur Willkommenspatin) due to her work with the Japanese in town. A first meeting of four of these experts with Langen’s Mayor Frieder Gebhardt and the Head of the Economics Department of the town, Helmut Simon, took place on July 3. Together with three of the other Welcome Experts, Mr. Shivadas S. Pattanath from India, who already received a national award for the tremendous work he has been doing, Mr. René Bell Bell from Kamerun, the President of Deutsch-Afrikanischen Brücke e.V., a charitable organization promoting cultural and technickal knowledge between Germany and Africa, and the Englishman Mr. Graham Waters who is an expert on insurance and a great networker, the first ideas for this major project were discussed.
