International youth work is one of the many segments facing major challenges two years into the pandemic, as we all know. So the fact that the German Federation for Arts Education and Cultural Learning (BKJ) and its Tanzanian partner held a joint conference to reinvigorate dialogue was all the more important.
Last November, volunteer fireman Julian Schwab became the first Team works! participant from Germany to travel to Kenya on an SES assignment. He spent three weeks working alongside his tandem partner, SES expert Oliver Elsner, to deliver breathing apparatus courses to four different fire stations in Kilifi County and came to realise how valuable a change of perspective is.
For the past four weeks, Oloshuku Mbukure Lerug, known as Ole in short, from Usa River in Tanzania has been interning at the Hegau-Jugendwerk rehabilitation centre, where he has been able to expand his expertise in the field of treatment strategies and device-based therapy approaches. In addition to working in therapy sessions, the 27-year-old Team works! participant and qualified physiotherapist will also gain an insight into working with and manufacturing prostheses.
With the launch of the AGYO in summer 2021, Team works! has opened up new opportunities for the exchange of young experts in the field of development policy. Team works! wants to promote the exchange of young professionals from Germany and African countries. Erica Kusi Amponsah from Ghana is the first young African expert to come to Germany with the AGYO.
Bonn-based Senior Experten Service (SES) will play a key role as a partner in the newly established African-German Youth Office (AGYO). The SES will be running Team works!, one of the two programmes to be offered by the Youth Office, which was announced today in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in Berlin. The move means a stepping up of the SES’ activities in the field of African-German expert exchange.
