Unkeler Kita House of the Little Artists of Life” is in the final!

Unkeler Kita House of the Little Artists of Life” is in the final!

An always popular topic in Unkel is the impressive work of the local daycare center “Haus der kleine Lebenskunstler”. Now a breath of fresh air comes into play: This facility has made it into the best eight daycare centers for the German Daycare Award 2025. The head of the daycare center, Claudia Gries, submitted the application in Berlin out of a spontaneous reaction of defiance and thus laid the foundation for this award Rhine newspaper reported.

The “House of Little Life Artists” is in the final selection in the “Kita of the Year” category. This not only means that she has prevailed against numerous competitors, but also that she has already received 1,000 euros in recognition of her outstanding work. The awards ceremony will take place on November 27th in Berlin, and the daycare center is of course already excited and looking forward to this special occasion.

Diversity among the finalists

But she is not alone. According to the German Kita Prize There are seven other facilities in the same category. These come from cities such as Regensburg in Bavaria, Potsdam and Oranienburg in Brandenburg, as well as Kirchen (Sieg) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Bernsdorf in Saxony, Bad Oldesloe in Schleswig-Holstein and Jena in Thuringia. All eight daycare centers have distinguished themselves through their special qualities and show how diverse and innovative German early childhood education is.

Now we will see in the coming weeks which of the finalists really impresses the jury. Two experts will visit all 16 finalists to check the quality of the education on site. Observations, workshops and discussions with those involved are carried out to evaluate the implementation of the four quality dimensions of the award.

A prize with tradition

The German Kita Prize has been awarded since 2018 and is an important initiative of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs and the German Children and Youth Foundation. The award criteria are also clear and evaluate the quality of early childhood education. Last year, for example, Kita Heide-Süd from Halle (Saale) was awarded first place and 25,000 euros in prize money. It turns out that the competition is very strong and every daycare center has to do its best to shine like them BMFSFJ reported.

A reason for Unkel to be happy: It is not only a recognition for the “Haus der kleine Lebenskunstler”, but also for the entire region, which shows how important good early childhood education is. Let's stay tuned to see what happens next and whether the Unkeler Kita can take home the title of “Kita of the Year” at the end of the year.