They call it the “Saba program,” after the German name for the legendary Queen of Sheba, who traveled from her home country to seek knowledge from King Solomon and to test him with questions.
And the mostly Muslim women who attend and also have come from afar say they acquire not only the education they lacked, or the German language they didn’t know, but the ability to integrate into a society where the integration of Muslims is a matter of hot debate.
Shabana, a 29-year-old Afghan woman, says the escape from an environment “where men thought women shouldn’t attend any school” was like being “born again” after years of suffering in a restrictive, arranged marriage.
Like other women interviewed for this article, Shabana was still shy about giving her full name, citing the need for security from men who might object to her choice.
But she and others of the 20 or so women selected each year for the Saba program exuded what they said was a new confidence that they could control and shape their lives.
The program, which started in 2008, is designed for women between 18 and 35 who don’t have roots in Germany and seek a school diploma. The fellows get money for school fees, child care, Metro tickets and coaching lessons.
Outside school hours, said Cora Stein, a program coordinator, “we want them to interact with each other — and we go with them to the movies, theater and have some weekend seminars.”
Shabana, who had been living as a refugee with family in Iran, was engaged at 13 to an Afghan man who lived in Frankfurt. It was arranged by her grandfather, she said, and two years later she married and moved to Germany.
Although her husband and his family had been living in Germany for many years, they did not allow her to go to school or work. In 2006, after some eight years of marriage, she left and took her daughter, now 7.
While the Saba program is not designed exclusively for Muslim women, most of the participants are Muslims, mainly women like Shabana, plucked or uprooted from their homelands into arranged marriages to men in Germany. In some cases, Ms. Stein said, the women have been abused and come from shelters.
According to 2010 city statistics, Frankfurt is home to some 77,000 Muslims, including about 36,000 women. The Crespo Foundation, established with €1.5 million, or $2 million, from Ulrike Crespo, granddaughter of the man who built the cosmetics empire Wella, caters to just a small fraction of them.
In addition to spending €150,000 a year to offer the Saba participants education, Crespo works with Berami, a government-funded institute that supports immigrants, to offer 12 to 15 of the fellows the chance to be mentored by educated professional women, some of them retired, who offer their advice free for a year.
The aim, said Ute Chrysam, manager of this effort, is to help the students to get a “real profession,” and not just a school diploma. Everyone benefits from the mix of cultures, religions and experiences, she said.
Fatima, now 30, came from Bosnia in 1993 after both her parents were killed in the war there. She had had only three years of schooling in Bosnia, and when she landed as a refugee with a Bosnian family in Germany, learned no German.
She ended up marrying a Bosnian man born in Germany. The marriage, she said, was effectively an abusive hell — she cared for her sick mother-in-law while dealing with her husband’s violent mood swings as she slowly realized he was a drug addict.
After seven years, she left. Intimidated, and shy of contact outside the family, she found it hard to make her way. The Saba program, she said, and the mentoring she had received from a woman she described as now her best friend, recently helped her land an internship in a notary’s office, she said.
Now, she smiled, “I feel that I am strong and can make my point.”
Although most women applying for the program neither speak nor write German, the foundation insists on written applications and sees this as an important step. Very often, Ms. Stein said, the statement is nothing more than one German sentence: “I want to apply for a fellowship.”
“We want to make sure that the women are really committing to it and understand that they will have to put in some effort as well,” Ms. Stein said.
Attendees said it was important to them that everyone taking part was a woman.
“It was the most important point that helped me when I spoke with my husband about the program,” said Leeda, 34, who is from Afghanistan. “He had no issues when I told him everyone involved is just a woman.”
“My aim is to study at university, and he said, ‘Go for it,”’ she added.
The Crespo Foundation invites husbands to come in to its offices and asks them to sign a contract with their wives, to ensure their commitment, Ms. Stein said.
Rosina Walter, the director of Berami, says that while the program is small, its results prove that Muslims can — and want to — adapt to German society. More than 50 percent of the women who have attended “don’t have a problem finding a job,” she said.
Hilime Arslaner, a member of the city Parliament in Frankfurt for the Greens, has taught women in the Saba program and argued that it not only integrated the women, but helped the German economy by affording them financial independence.
“I think today too many politicians talk about the unwillingness of Muslims, especially women, to integrate,” Ms. Walter said. “But when you see these great women we are having here, you realize, these politicians just talk nonsense.”