Alumna Founds Non-Profit Organization
ECLA alumna Fiamma Rupp-Gembs' own words about her endeavor:
About 3 years and a half ago I lived a year in Guatemala learning Spanish and working as a volunteer in Xela (Quetzaltenango) in an elementary school and in the garbage dumps of Guatemala City. At that time I began to want to found an organization that would work within the realm of rural development and would involve intercultural exchange and communication. I decided to wait on these plans, however, in order to gather more experience and study first. A year later, though, I realized that one can successfully study and work at the same time.
The plan to found an organization evolved with the additional desire to create a new system for aid organizations which would foster development but at the same time would not create new dependence. The ultimate aim of such a system is its own uselessness, because of the establishment of self-sufficiency among the people that receive the aid. The most common problem within the realm of aid organizations around the world is their slow but steady decadence and corruption. I have only seen a few organizations and private persons that have made a remarkable step towards a responsible aid system that gives genuine incentives to work and does not only create an opposite mechanism of passive reception.
That said, while establishing my own organization I have found out that it is very easy to criticize existing structures within aid development but hard to maintain one's ideals and somewhat idealistic aims. Nevertheless my ultimate aim remains the implementation of a reformed or new structure for aid development. Now the association "Sichere Perspektiven - Secure Perspectives e.V." has been founded in Germany, with its Guatemalan seat called "Seguras Perspectivas". The starting point of our projects is the primary school Cant n Xetuj in the little community of Cant n Xetuj, Quetzaltenango.
We do not intend to take over responsibility from society or the government, but want to initiate development and work. Aid for self-help is our top priority. We do not want to patronize our fellow human beings with well-worn social ideas and thus create a new interdependence. We want to accompany, challenge and support them on their road of self-determination.
Our fields of action are health, education, infrastructure, the social realm and volunteer work. We have had several events and focus now on four projects in the area of health which are intertwined with the components of education and infrastructure: 1. educational talk by a doctor about parasites, their formation, the consequences and their prevention; 2. bioanalysis of water, and of parasites of 151 children of the primary school and the necessary medication; 3. vaccination of hepatitis A & B; 4. construction of lavatories with running water.
The talk by the doctor was a great success and the bioanalysis is almost complete. For these projects several international institutions have indicated their financial support. Nevertheless we need donations to complement external support and to stabilize our work. Everybody can join us in our work by volunteering within the projects, in the primary school itself as assistant teachers or helping out in administrative matters such as fundraising or international and intercultural event management. If you want to know more about it, feel free to contact me!
- Fiamma
Email: Feuersonnenrose@gmx.de
phone (London): 0044 (0)7906536585
Sichere Perspektiven - Secure Perspectives e.V.
Bernhardstr.32, 45239 Essen, Germany
Phone (Germany) 0049 (0)201 401020
Dresdner Bank Essen-Werden, KN 0 622 153 100, BLZ 360 800 80