In Duisburg-Hochfeld more than every second child lives in poverty. They and their families come from many different countries—but they use the digits 053 in the local postal code as a sign of their belonging. These are the #053kids. Photographer Toby Binder has accompanied young people in Hochfeld for years, documenting their everyday lives and making their lives visible. Binder has masterfully captured their experience of social injustice, their struggle for identity, but also their friendships and aspirations.

“We are the Kanaks, we will never belong, that’s how it is,” says 17-year-old Apo. In Hochfeld, 93 percent of young people come from migrant families. They often do not see themselves as German, but as Albanians, for example, like Ensar. But “if I haven’t been in Hochfeld for five weeks, I get homesick. I love Germany!”

Binder has received international awards for many of his socially engaged photo projects and has been published in Stern, The Guardian, Le Monde, The Washington Post, and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, among others.