Arbeit und Dritte Welt

Further information in the article about the container transport from 27.02.2012

The German government-owned Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) provided a transport subsidy, while Arbeit und Dritte Welt repaired a 40′ high-cube container and contributed several hundred tools and workshop accessories for wood and metal. After Hildesheim customs had checked the donations, the conditions for a further transport by the Lernen-Helfen-Leben association were fulfilled.

Association board member Bernd Blaschke from Düsseldorf writes:

“The two associations “Lernen-Helfen-Leben” in Germany and “Developmental Association for Renewables Energies” in Nigeria have been working together for 5 years on a probably unique project: CDM funds are being used to support the sale of highly efficient wood-saving stoves. This project is the first in Africa and there are only 16 of its kind in the world. The Nigerian partner organization now has experience of how to sell such stoves to men and women and the targets for the next few years are correspondingly optimistic: the aim is no longer 2,000 per year but 10,000 per year. With a sales area twice the size of Germany, the small Berlingo is overstretched, a proper truck is now needed, equipped with two rows of seats so that a larger team can drive to the families in the villages if necessary, but 100 of our stoves have to be transported in any case. Our Nigerian friends had actually asked for a bus with air conditioning, which is understandable with midday temperatures slightly above 40 degrees. If the goal could be achieved by the end of the year, then there will be a bus with air conditioning and, on top of that, one that can handle vegetable oil, because our partners are busy planting jatropha and collecting the nuts, which make an excellent vegetable oil. Meanwhile, our German friends are looking for a suitable diesel transporter that can be converted to run on PÖL. This could open up a whole new market for Nigeria, as petrol and diesel prices have risen by almost 100% since January 1st. The container also contains a solar system for a bungalow built entirely from plastic bottles, another first in Africa. The German master builder Andreas Froese has built Africa’s first bottle house in Nigeria and now the interior fittings are still missing: light from solar power, water from the roof solar system and a modern separating toilet (there are only a few of these in Germany). When this bottle bungalow is finished, it will be a place of pilgrimage for builders and architects, because this is Africa’s house of the future: made from environmental waste and yet sustainable, innovative and inexpensive and therefore forward-looking, Africa is without doubt the continent of the future.
Further information can be found on the L-H-L website.”

Gerard Niyimbonera, Chairman of the Hanoverian association Irembo, is happy. Behind him lies a nerve-racking but ultimately successful stay in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.

After the Liemba, which was built as the Graf Goetzen at the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg before the First World War, then dismantled and transported in 3000 crates to Lake Tanganyika and reassembled there, a second, not so large but fine ship, again from Lower Saxony, the Irembo, is now floating on the sixth largest lake in the world. A project carried out with a great deal of patience, diligence and perseverance has thus come to a successful conclusion. The purpose of a two-year project by the Labora youth workshop and the pupils it supervises, Arbeit und Dritte Welt, the city of Hildesheim and the Federal Ministry for Family and Youth has thus been fulfilled.

Sponsored by the Helfen Direkt association and its 1st Chairman, the Honorary Consul of Burundi, Dietrich von Berg, the container arrived by boat from Hildesheim via Hamburg and Dar Es Salaam to Bujumbura. On the way there, many difficulties had to be overcome on the part of the port and border authorities.
Finally, the boat was damaged in the port of Bujumbura by employees of the port company, but was repaired in the end.

Clearing this last obstacle for the project almost cost Gerard Niyimbonera, chairman of the Hanoverian association Irembo and initiator of this project, his last nerves. He flew to Bujumbura with friends to supervise the unloading and commissioning of the boat.

It is now being used by young people from Bujumbura and is intended to help them build a livelihood. There are over 300 different species of fish in the 18800 km² lake and around 45,000 people live from fishing. But the boat will also be useful as a means of transportation.

Walter Nothdurft made his former office furniture available to us. They are now used in the office of our social services department. This spared this beautiful furniture from being thrown away.

Once again, bicycles were loaded into three 40′ containers under the direction of the Eritrea Relief Organization for Germany (EHD), the Eritrean Association for the Physically Disabled in Stuttgart e.V. and Arbeit und Dritte Welt. Once again, the recipient was the Eritrean Association of the Physically Disabled and War Invalids.

We also packed lockers, 20 sets of tools for metal workshops (approx. 800 individual items), 10 wheelchairs, 19 rollators and several boxes of spare parts, 13 mechanical and 12 electric sewing machines and a tailor’s dummy, shoemaking tools, 2,800 pairs of glasses and an assortment of Braille paper. The latter had been delivered to us by the EHD.

At 12:15 p.m., the truck with a 40′ container drove up to our premises: the long-prepared loading of a myriad of different donated goods for the Rural Youth Association in Wenchi / Ghana could begin. The donations, which had been organized by Ghana e.V. in Niedersächsische Landjugend, came from all over Lower Saxony.

Arbeit und Dritte Welt took care of the proper packing and loading and contributed a large number of carpentry and metalworking tools, drills, jigsaws and circular saws. In addition, a band saw, a mobile dust extraction unit, an industrial welding machine, a circular table saw and a planing machine as well as several treadle sewing machines, wheelchairs and walking frames. Finally, more than 70 rakes, hoes, shovels, grips and scythes. It is worth noting in this context that most of this equipment had been collected by our trade union colleagues in Sehnde and refurbished in our workshops.

Thorben Sumfleth and Sören Dress traveled all the way from the Kehdinger Land – with a freshly TÜV-approved car for the Rural Youth Assiciation in tow.

At 3:15 pm, the container was loaded with the donations that had previously been checked and approved by Hildesheim customs, sealed and set off on its onward journey to the free port in Hamburg.

We were very pleased to be able to carry out such a project with Ghana e.V. once again.

We received an irrigation unit for the planned donation transport of the Ghana e.V. in the Niedersächsische Landjugend. Our mechanics workshop cleaned the machine, fitted spare parts and got it running successfully. The preparatory work for the replacement of the exhaust system has been completed by the metalworking shop – the unit will be complete again next Monday! And it works!

The Hildesheim sculptor and contact artist Moritz Bormann is no stranger to many employees at Arbeit und Dritte Welt. Mutual visits to workshops and studios laid the foundations for an intensive working relationship several years ago.

An exhibition by Bormann at our premises and a four-week contact art event in the circus tent on our premises led to a workshop sponsored by the Johannishof Foundation, which resulted in the creation of the large kinetic steel sculpture “ Air Jump”. This has stood and rotated next to the facade of our workshop ever since.

Bormann was not the only one who was taken with the collaboration: in late summer, we were able to welcome him back to our premises. With the collaboration of Rainer Schimberle and the support of our colleagues from the metalworking shop, Bormann produced the sculpture Icarus, a commissioned work. The techniques with which Bormann works and his concept of developing solutions from practical experience are interesting and educational for our metalworkers. A meeting in Bormann’s studio in Garbolzum is planned next.

The International Youth Community Services (IJGD) organize work camps in which young people from different countries and cultures around the world meet to live together for two to four weeks and get involved in a meaningful project. The participants use their manpower for a charitable project, for which they do not receive a wage, but free accommodation and meals.

Gemeinwesenentwicklung Stadtfeld e.V., in cooperation with Caritasverband für Stadt und Landkreis Hildesheim e.V., has decided to host the “World” in this “Year of European Volunteering”. Young people from Mexico, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Armenia, Algeria, South Korea and Germany visited us on this occasion.

Almost half of the container intended for the DARE project in Nigeria has now been repainted and the number of donations to be sent in it is steadily increasing. Today, on Saturday, Mr. Blaschke and Mr. Fredmüller drove up with a trailer full of relief supplies.

The plan so far is to send the 40′ container at the end of November.
The photos show, among other things, how the Berlingo panel van sent by ADW two years ago is being used in Nigeria.