Edda Stelck

Edda Stelck (* 1939 in Hamburg ; † October 28, 2014 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German educator and activist. She was a co-founder of the Third World Shops and the Heinrich Böll Foundation . The slogan " Jute instead of plastic " is ascribed to it.

Life

Stelck started working early, initially as an unskilled saleswoman. However, she soon trained as a community educator out of a desire to work with people. In the course of her life she was significantly involved in a variety of initiatives: In the 1970s she was one of the pioneers of the fairer trade movement and worked early on to network development policy actors. In 1972 she founded in Frankfurt the first Third World Shop with the Federal Republic. She had a decisive influence on the Federal Congress of Development Action Groups (BUKO, from 1977). For her, her professional work was at the same time volunteer work. In addition, she trained as a teacher and therapist and became a lecturer for peace and development education at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt . At the same time she worked as a travel secretary for the Evangelical Girls' Organization .

At the end of the 1980s she co-founded the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Cologne, whose work she accompanied on a voluntary basis for many years. With the merger of three predecessor foundations into today's Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, Edda Stelck became a member of the new general assembly and from 2002 to 2006 a member of the supervisory board.

In 1978 she became deputy head of the Ecumenical Workshop in Frankfurt am Main , the conference and advice center of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau, and later also a representative for ecumenism and pastoral care in the Ecumenical Center . Among other things, she organized seminars on development education work with confirmands, youth groups, third world groups, parishes, pastors and vicars.

Edda Stelck was a member of the Committee for Development-Related Education and Journalism of the Evangelical Development Service (ABP) for around two decades , most recently as deputy chairwoman.

An important impetus that followed the course of history internationally was her involvement in the 1987 Evangelical Church Congress in Frankfurt, which, as the “Church Congress against Apartheid”, announced the turning point in South Africa . The project “Jazz against Apartheid” had originated in Frankfurt a year earlier and Stelck's wide-awake presence of mind did not escape it. As a result, authentic voices were perceived in the official program of this church convention. "Jazz against Apartheid" was developed in 1986 with the South African musician Johnny Dyani in Frankfurt.

Since her retirement in 2002 from active service at the EKHN, Edda Stelck has worked as a therapist in her own practice.

Grave of Edda Stelck

After a serious operation, she was paraplegic and died on October 28, 2014 in Frankfurt.

A grave stele for Stelck was made by the sculptor Martin Dehler . It stands on Edda Stelck's grave in Gewann K 57 in Frankfurt's main cemetery . The stele was made from a large oak trunk from the Vogelsberg in Wehrheim . Wulf R. Günther, an entrepreneur and companion of Stelck, had taken over the production together with the Frankfurt journalist Cornelia Wilß and the Butzbacher Oliver Weiland, as a sign that friendship can last beyond death.

Honors

In 2011 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon .

Fonts

• Politics with the shopping basket. The evangelical women's boycott campaign against apartheid. Jugenddienst-Verlag, Wuppertal 1980.

Web links

• Literature by and about Edda Stelck in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Böll Foundation: We mourn Edda Stelck (1939 to 2014). (October 31, 2014)
• ekhn: “Jute instead of plastic.” Inventor of “Third World Shops” died. (October 29, 2014)
• tz-usingen: Memory of Edda Stelck. (October 15, 2015)
• melodiva.de: Federal Cross of Merit for Edda Stelck. (October 23, 2011)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Founder of the first third world shop died. In: evangelisch.de. September 14, 1958. Retrieved September 15, 2018 . 
2. ↑ "Edda Stelck called himself 68, and that with an ironic undertone." Böll Foundation: We mourn Edda Stelck.
3. ↑ melodiva.de: Federal Cross of Merit for Edda Stelck.
4. ↑ ekhn : "Jute instead of plastic."
5. ↑ tz-usingen: memory of Edda Stelck.