Our way

Dur­ing a hol­i­day in Mom­basa in August 2006, the idea for Mama Africa was born. Spon­tan­eously, a first pro­ject is ini­ti­ated with private funds: a vil­lage shop as a dir­ect source of sup­ply. Two more busi­nesses are foun­ded, also sup­por­ted by private funds.

Rent­ing of the “Mama Afrika Haus” in Bam­buri, Mom­basa in Kenya, as a cen­ter of activ­it­ies for five of the Mama Afrika pro­jects. The “Mama Afrika Haus” will also be used to set up the “WOMEN” tail­or­ing work­shop as a sup­port pro­ject for single mothers.

Per­son­nel changes in the team due to the depar­ture of co-founders Man­fred Schir­mack and Mari­on Pirsch­kalla. On-site sup­port is provided by three loc­al pro­cess facil­it­at­ors. Mama Afrika is now also on the “dona­tion list” from the Min­istry of Finance.

The eco­nom­ic crisis in Mom­basa is also hit­ting Mama Afrika’s pro­jects hard. Tour­ism has com­pletely col­lapsed and many busi­nesses have lost their basis. At the same time, the cost of daily liv­ing has ris­en sharply. The loc­al sup­port mod­el has col­lapsed. What worked well for years no longer works. The pro­cess facil­it­at­ors have lost their reli­ab­il­ity, the eco­nom­ic hard­ship makes them think more about them­selves than about oth­ers. At the end of 2015, we are close to end­ing Mama Africa.

We have regained our cour­age! It turns out that thanks to mod­ern means of com­mu­nic­a­tion, we can super­vise the pro­jects dir­ectly from Aus­tria. And a woman from Ukundu also gives us cour­age with her unbroken will to improve her and her daugh­ters’ lives. Intens­ive eval­u­ation and reflec­tion work leads to the new concept “Mama Africa 3.0”, a devel­op­ment mod­el with 4 phases. The applic­a­tions so far show that we are back on the right track.

Monika Wäg had already made a trip to Ghana in 2019 to volun­teer in a school in the Volta region. With this exper­i­ence, a col­lab­or­a­tion with Mama Africa was born, which then res­ul­ted in the joint super­vi­sion of a pilot pro­ject in Ghana in 2020. In this pro­ject, a young, ambi­tious and well-edu­cated woman is sup­por­ted to suc­cess­fully run and expand her farm. In 2021, a second and large pro­ject was taken over with the Gbeke­bii School of Art and Cul­ture in the dis­trict of James-town in the cap­it­al of Ghana, in Accra, which for the time being aims to give 150 chil­dren not only a school edu­ca­tion and food, but also a pro­fes­sion­al per­spect­ive for the future.

After three long years, the time has finally come: We can once again travel to Kenya to vis­it our mem­bers in per­son. Much has changed, yet some things remain the same: New mem­bers have joined, but nat­ur­al dis­asters and social unrest con­tin­ue to shape life on the ground. Through intens­ive dis­cus­sions and coach­ing, we sup­port our mem­bers in pur­su­ing their goals and fur­ther devel­op­ing their busi­nesses with our assist­ance. On this sup­port trip, we were also accom­pan­ied by Tina Reit­er and Lukas Els­neg, who cap­tured impress­ive images and videos to provide insights into our work.

Fol­low­ing the well-deserved retire­ment of Georg Brand­ner, one of the found­ing mem­bers of Mama Afrika, some neces­sary changes were made to the association’s board. At the begin­ning of the year, Monika Wäg took over the role of chair­wo­man, Richard Wäg assumed his new pos­i­tion as deputy treas­urer, Philip Brand­ner became deputy sec­ret­ary, and in Septem­ber, Gun­del Per­schler took on the role of vice-chairwoman.

The sup­port trip in March marks a sig­ni­fic­ant step for­ward: in Kwale, south of Mom­basa, the start­ing sig­nal is giv­en for the “Farm­ing Excel­lence Cen­ter.” Togeth­er with Mama Afrika and sup­por­ted by Fair­Styia, George is build­ing a teach­ing farm for sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture. The goal is to open up new oppor­tun­it­ies for young people and to provide farm­ers with prac­tic­al know­ledge about sus­tain­able farm­ing.
At the same time, in col­lab­or­a­tion with a Kenyan law­yer, efforts are under­way to leg­ally secure the pro­ject in the long term and estab­lish it as a train­ing cen­ter.

There is also a change with­in the board: Gun­del Per­schler steps down from her role as deputy chair at her own request. We sin­cerely thank her for her com­mit­ment and are pleased to wel­come Maria Theuer­mann as the new deputy chair.

In addi­tion to our online con­trolling course, the Online Day­book is being developed: a web app that allows rev­en­ues and expenses to be recor­ded dir­ectly on a mobile phone. Products and costs can be eas­ily selec­ted from lists, and it imme­di­ately becomes clear wheth­er a profit or loss has been made. For our mem­bers, this is a notice­able облегчение—no more cal­cu­la­tions on paper in the even­ing, but clar­ity in real time.

With “Mama Afrika 4.0,” the asso­ci­ation enters a new phase of devel­op­ment. As part of revis­ing the strategy through 2035, key future top­ics are being sharpened and realigned.

Anoth­er sup­port trip provides valu­able input for this pro­cess while also offer­ing dir­ect insight into the pro­gress on the farm in Kwale.

The insights gained flow dir­ectly into the fur­ther devel­op­ment of the association’s work: new approaches to sup­port­ing our mem­bers are emer­ging, along with fresh ideas to strengthen com­munity engage­ment. In this way, Mama Afrika is set­ting the course for an impact-ori­ented and sus­tain­able future.