THE FOUNDATION’S HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Ekkehard Foundation was brought into being by company founder Karl Friedrich Meckel and his family. The aim of the foundation is "to establish and maintain homesteads for a community of students with different nationalities in service to international understanding and world peace".

During the traumatic time in French war captivity, Karl Friedrich Meckel became convinced that a war like this should never ever happen again. After having returned from war captivity in 1946, he devoted all of his energy to reconstructing his entirely destroyed company. Experiences of the war and his belief in understanding among nations accompanied Karl Friedrich Meckel through the last years of reconstruction.

By the end of the 1950s, the Trifels publishing company had become a thriving company. Now Karl Friedrich Meckel was able to practise what he preached. On the 16th of December 1960 he and his wife Erna founded the Ekkehard Foundation International Student Homes in Frankfurt am Main. The aim of the foundation is to serve the Christian belief of international understanding.

Various regulatory requirements prompted Karl Friedrich Meckel to move the foundation's head offices to the University of Mannheim, his former place of study.

There, the foundation is involved with the university‘s Internationales Begegnungszentrum ("International Centre for Encounters"). Today, the foundation serves as sponsor for several flats which are provided free of charge for students from different nationalities.

By providing housing, the spirit of international understanding literally finds room to live in as well. The founder expects students to engage in their studies and to actively promote international understanding.

The foundation is funded through annual donations of its council members. In this regard, the generous donations of SARAG GmbH and of the Kreissparkasse Kaiserslautern in particular are worth mentioning.