24 January saw Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), headed by Federal Minister Svenja Schulze, present its new Africa Strategy. It focuses on respectful cooperation with African countries and the sustainable development of the African continent. The AGYO will contribute to this aim in the area of “Promoting civil society engagement and youth”.
Just in time for the first door of the Advent calendar on December, 1st, the German-African Youth Office (AGYO) also opened its own doors into the social media world with its new Instagram channel, africangermanexchange_dajw. The main focus of the channel is to promote opportunities for young experts to volunteer in an African country with Team works!
From 30th October to 3rd November, the African-German Youth Office held its first event in Africa - a networking workshop in Ghana’s capital city, Accra. The four-day event provided a forum for 22 participants from civil society and organisations to meet up with representatives from Engagement Global and share knowledge and ideas, network with each other and ask questions. The results will now be incorporated into an evaluation process for the AGYO’s pilot phase.
With the African-German Youth Office (AGYO) about to celebrate its first anniversary, so far it has supported 31 exchange projects with youth groups from Germany and 13 African countries as well as 13 international assignments by young people. One of those young people is Rebeca Biira, a head chef from Uganda. She’s currently on assignment at the Konditorei Wippler cake shop in Dresden, in the German state of Saxony, where she met State Minister Barbara Klepsch.
The NGO Terre des Hommes and the logistics group Dachser organized an international youth exchange focused on SDG 11, “Sustainable Cities and Communities.” During the exchange, the youth groups developed the idea for Trash4Cash, a recycling company now operating successfully in Livingstone, Zambia. We spoke with Joshua Hofert, Head of Communications at Terre des Hommes, and Bernhard Simon, Chairman of the Board of Dachser—and conducted a video interview with Chimunya Mutombo, who works as a project coordinator at Trash4Cash.
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.
