Shape
weltwärts

Back home but still active: how to stay involved

Be inspired by other returnees’ ideas

You likely returned from your volunteering service with the desire to make a change – both personally and in a wider sense, too. Read here how other returnees have continued to contribute and be inspired by their ideas. Put your experiences to good use and continue to help shape our One World!

Successfully applying the things learned during volunteer service

Kossi Paul Enyan Klu | Berlin, Germany

Since 2013 I have been involved with the Togolese volunteer organisation Association Togolaise des Volontaires au Travail (ASTOVOT). The experiences acquired from this involvement as well as a very exciting ASTOVOT workcamp gave my friend Komla Edoh Satchivi and me the idea of helping needy children and young people in our area and offer them prospects for the future. Armed with these intentions we founded SEDO-Togo, now a successful and recognised organisation in this country. But first things first...

Whoever said that once you get back it´s all over and done with…

Nina and Vincent | India

A weltwärts volunteer experience leaves its mark. The volunteers return from their year abroad with a big bag full of impressions and experiences – and need to reflect on what to do next. Where will their path lead them now? How should they apply all their new-found skills? Vincent Gstettenbauer and Nina Wiedemann completed a volunteering assignment in India with their sending organisation Deutsch-Indische Zusammenarbeit e.V. Once they returned, they stayed involved in various ways.

Discussing problems, experiences, perspectives and opportunities with returnees often helps to generate new ideas and has a great re-balancing and inspiring effect.

View from afar

Arturo | Freiburg, Germany

Before I started my volunteer service, I took part in some business start-up programmes in Peru that were quite popular at the time. On these programmes I learned how important economic growth and the free market as well as foreign investment are for the development of a country and the well-being of its people. I watched the news on television about mining conflicts in Peru and I was convinced that the protesters’ demands were hiding political interests that actually were more hostile to progress. Against this background, I applied to Color Esperanza and the Archdiocese of Freiburg to work as a volunteer in Germany, a “developed” country, for one year.

Germany has a problem with racism!

Makda Isak | weltwärts in Color

Makda Isak did her volunteer service in Tanzania from 2012 to 2013, and now she’s studying sociology in Frankfurt. Since 2015 Makda has been involved with Weltwärts in Color. This is where volunteers who experience racial discrimination meet. The name Weltwärts in Color is drawn from the term People of Color. A name chosen by people who are seen as non-white by the white majority society and who therefore miss out on many privileges enjoyed by the majority society.

Only by documenting racism can awareness be raised in society.

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