Amal News has every reason to celebrate: The media project has been around for ten years. Sisters Cornelia and Julia Gerlach founded it in Berlin in 2016 with ten journalists who had been forced to flee their home countries. Immediately after the fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Amal opened a journalism school in Damascus. Media professionals from various European countries, including those from tuenews INTERNATIONAL, celebrated Amal’s ten-year success story with the organization.
In Arabic, “Amal” means “hope”—a symbol of the project’s work. The founders didn’t just want to enable the newly arrived journalists to build a professional future; they were also committed to helping them “find their way in Germany,” as Julia Gerlach put it. Initially, the portal’s goal was to provide refugees with reliable and understandable information about local events in Berlin—for example, why the S-Bahn wasn’t running. Amal News went online in 2017.
Helping Shape Society
The goal of providing good information remains. The target audience has expanded. In 2019, the online portal established a local newsroom in Hamburg, followed by one in Frankfurt in 2023. A second priority for the team—which has since grown to 26 employees—is to encourage readers to get involved and help shape German society. One example: elections, such as the recent one in Berlin. This also raised the question: How can people who have never voted before find their political bearings?
Developed Its Own AI Tool
In addition to news about daily life, politics, and culture in Germany, the homepage also features feature stories, profiles, and opinion pieces. In Berlin, Amal presented an AI tool developed in-house. It helps analyze information and draft texts. Before an article goes online, it is reviewed, edited, and approved by editors.
News and Features via Many Channels
The current staff members come from Syria, Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. News and longer articles are published in Arabic, Dari/Farsi, and, since 2022, in Ukrainian. Amal not only operates several local websites but is also active on Facebook and Instagram. In addition, the staff publishes videos and podcasts on streaming platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. Amal reports a monthly reach of five million.
Journalism School in Syria as a Bridge
Shortly after al-Assad’s fall in December 2024, Amal News took on a new and challenging task: founding a journalism school in the Syrian capital, Damascus. The school’s explicit goal is to contribute to Syria’s reconstruction and support a fresh start. In addition, the news portal aims to use the school to “build a bridge between Syrians in Germany and their homeland,” according to Julia Gerlach. The second class is now being trained there.
Hope: Helping Shape a Different Future
Heifaa Atfeh, an Arabic teacher and journalist, has been part of the school’s training team on several occasions. Her three assignments in Damascus awakened in her “a mixture of love and pride, and above all, hope,” as she writes. She has faith in the ability of these aspiring journalists to bring about change—including “through their awareness, openness, and desire to build a different future.”
Further information:
See: https://amalnews.de
and https://amalnews.de/ueber-amal/
as well as the editorial teams’ posts in the respective languages on Facebook and Instagram.
tun26101403