We help Africa

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Logo of the initiative We help Africa

We help Africa e. V. was a social aid project that enabled children in need in South Africa to receive free medical treatment. The project originated in the Allgäu in Württemberg . The former Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Günther Oettinger was the patron of the initiative .

history

Through the experiences before and during the soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany with the aid project “Wangen helps Togo ” the idea “We help Africa” was born. Before the project “Wangen helps Togo” was awarded the Bambi in autumn 2006 , the initiators Christian Skrodzki, Igor Wetzel, Giovanni Granziera and Wolfram Dreier decided in 2010 to transfer the idea of ​​“Wangen helps Togo” to 32 cities. On December 13th, 2008 the association “We help Africa” was officially founded as a registered association .

The concept of the project

The concept of the project was to cooperate with 32 cities. Each city named a personality from sport, culture or politics as city sponsor. The 32 cities each represented one of the 32 national soccer teams that took part in the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa. A city, a national team and a city sponsor helped a needy child from Africa . In this way, 32 children received free medical treatment from a German-South African team of doctors. In the cities, citizens, associations and initiatives collected donations to finance the medical treatment of a child from Africa for each city. 32 cities took part in the initiative. Each city had its own website and was given a BigShoe.

BigShoe

The symbol of the project is the BigShoe, a size 100 leather shoe

The BigShoe was the trademark of We Help Africa. Each city got a BigShoe (shoe size 100) in the national flag of the country that represents the city. The city that had raised the most money per inhabitant by June 30, 2010 won a BigShoe made of gold. Each of the 32 cities that took part in the project got their own BigShoe. The city BigShoe reflected the country flag of the country for which the city was participating. This symbolized the bond with the 32 national football teams that a city represented.

The inventor and manufacturer of the BigShoe is the master shoemaker Bernd Lademacher from Heidelberg .

The 32 cities

people

Medical team

In addition to the German doctors Konrad Wangerin, Wolfgang Kater, Klaus Exner and A. Ziah Taufig, doctors from South and Central African countries were also involved in the project. The project cooperated with Interplast-Germany , Mercy Ships and the South African Smile Foundation , of which Nelson Mandela is the patron .

Founding members

The association was founded by Christian Skrodzki, Igor Wetzel, Alexander Wiedenbach, Rainer Mack, Giovanni Granziera, Robert Ohmayer, Thilo Linder and Wolfram Dreier. The nonprofit organization is registered in the register of the local court Leutkirch entered.

City sponsors and project supporters

By adopting a city sponsorship, the following personalities got involved in We Help Africa (the city for which the city sponsorship was adopted is in brackets):

As project ambassadors supported, among others, Matthias Kleinert , helmut roleder , Peter Bizer and Stephan snip the aid project. Rainer Bonhof and Helmut Dietterle were sports ambassadors for We Help Africa . Ralf Denninger was involved as a music and culture ambassador for Wir haben Afrika .

Contributors

From June 2009 to the end of August 2010, Andreas Söntgerath was the full-time managing director of We Help Africa . In summer 2009 he was supported by Niklas Lenz, who did an internship with the aid project. From December 2009 Miriam Schattel worked as a volunteer project assistant in the project office. From January 2010, Elke Tomaschek and from April 2010 Anja Buhmann also strengthened the office of the aid project in Leutkirch . The office team managed to exceed the planned donation of 256,000 euros by more than 500,000 euros. The office was closed at the end of August 2010 because the initiative was a full-time project .

Web links