Raise a Smile Hostel Berlin

So how did the Raise a Smile Hostel Berlin come about?

After founding the charity in early 2009 we discovered that it is actually very difficult to spread the word of such a small charity, so decided we needed to come up with a new idea to raise both awareness and hopefully some more funds.

The idea of creating our own Raise a Smile Hostel came up and it seemed to fit perfectly! Lots of young people from around the whole world coming to visit us and learning about Zambia and the work we do there who would then go back to their own country and tell their friends! So after lots of hard work on concepts, how, where, when etc. we opened our doors in December 2009.

The hostel is very small and homely (with only 18 beds) and has a Zambian theme. Each of the rooms is decorated with a different Zambian animal; we have the zebra 8 bed dorm, the "big cat" 6 bed dorm and the elephant and giraffe double rooms.

Despite being so new the hostel has already won high praise. It was voted number one hostel in Germany for 2010 by 1,000,000 customers of hostelworld (the number one hostelbooking website in the world). The hostel has also had coverage in both local and national German newpapers.

100% of the profit from the hostel goes directly to the projects we support. From the money raised in 2010 we have paid for the sponsorship of one child (Nathan) at the Kazembe orphanage, plus the school fees for 2 children from the N'gombe compound orphanage and the construction of a new toilet block at Magazine Community School in Chipata. We also have some money left over which we are keeping aside to use for the school project that we are planning to start in the near future.

Visit the Raise a Smile Hostel Berlin homepage to book your stay in Germany's exciting capital!