Without graduation and no prospect of vocational training young males between 17 and 25 are outsiders in a labor-oriented society. The Job Center and the Youth Welfare Service of Berlin’s district Neukoelln fund a small team of teachers and social workers, who work full time in order to ‘activate’ the young men. The film observes the measure ‘Neukoelln-Active’ with a Direct Cinema approach over a period of three months. It shows fairly successful attempts and hollow rituals, imposition of discipline and social-pedagogical interventions that go far beyond the scope of the ‘activation measure’. It also shows the institutions troubled relations to the sponsors of the program, who foster a questionable attitude towards administering the young ‘customers’.