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.
