Berlin – Ev. Diakoniewerk Königin Elisabeth

The Foundation Evangelisches Diakoniewerk Königin Elisabeth (EDKE – Queen Elisabeth Protestant Diaconal Organization) goes back to the founding of a reform school for small children and a hospital for children under the protection of Queen Elisabeth of Prussia in the year 1843.

The Deaconess Mother House was founded in 1887 and in 1910, after changing locations a few times, the Elisabeth hospital for children moved into an new hospital complex with a mother house in Berlin-Oberschöneweide that was specifically built for this purpose. At the new site, the hospital was expanded with a department for adults focused on internal medicine and surgery.

After the Second World War, the compound was seized by the High Command of the Soviet Forces as a military hospital and the hospital, by now named Königin-Elisabeth-Hospital, found its new home at today's location in Berlin-Lichtenberg. Being the only Protestant Hospital in the eastern part of Berlin, it shared the premises with the "Herzberge" Municipal Hospital for Psychiatry and after the end of the GDR, it merged with it under the Sponsorship of EDKE (Queen Elisabeth Protestant Diaconal Organization).

Today, the foundation operates a day care center for 85 children and after the hospital spin-off in 2001, the foundation became one of its partners.
Other fields of work are support for bereaved people and participation in hospice work. The leben lernen GmbH as a subsidiary of EDKE provides people with multiple mental deficiencies with housing, jobs in day care facilities and assistance in everyday life.