Catholic aid agency Caritas Germany
focuses on emergency relief but takes a holistic approach "to improve the
living conditions and future opportunities of the needy, weak and
disadvantaged". It provides funds, support and advice to local partner
organisations which then implement the aid. Press officer Linda Tenbohlen spoke
to Lauren Pollock about the organisation’s work and its plans to expand its
operations in Afghanistan. AN: What is the mission of Caritas
Germany?LT: Caritas Germany is a member of the
International Caritas Confederation. We do emergency aid throughout the whole
world and social work in different countries, especially with handicapped and
elderly people. Here in Germany, Caritas is a very big organisation in the
social sector. Working with children, the handicapped and the elderly are the
types of programmes we try to carry into other countries as well. AN: What are some of your current
programmes?LT: Right now we are trying to become active
in Afghanistan, but that’s still in the planning phase. We are working with
handicapped people in Vietnam. We are helping the Ministry of Social Affairs in
Vietnam to improve the work with handicapped people in the country. It is a big
issue there. The average number of handicapped people in Vietnam is higher than
in other countries. Another project is the work resulting from the drought in
Ethiopia last year and the flooding in Mozambique. We are still rebuilding in
Mozambique. We are building houses and communities. The people are getting
organised as a community. Most of the work is being done by the people
themselves. It is Caritas that gives the materials, support, and advice. In
Central America, we have been doing similar projects since the area was hit by
Hurricane Mitch three years ago. We are doing community building projects
there, together with the rebuilding of the houses and villages.AN: What kind of work does your
organisation plan to do in Afghanistan? LT: We are still in the process of
evaluating the whole situation. Right now, the International Caritas
Confederation is active in refugee camps in Pakistan. This is the work we are
going to continue and develop. Caritas Germany is trying to find ways to help
the people in Afghanistan because that should be a main focus. The aim should
be to support the people in Afghanistan so there will not be such a big influx
of refugees into Pakistan. This is pretty difficult right now. We hope at some
time it will be possible to send more goods into the country. Right now, it’s
only possible for a limited number of trucks to cross the border and go into
Afghanistan. We have set up a program to support 180,000 people in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. We have the goods ready. We have tents, blankets, household goods
and things like that. Now we just have to wait to see what the situation will
be like, whether the people will come to Pakistan or whether we’ll be able to
get into Afghanistan. If the borders are going to be open and people come into
Pakistan, then it is very necessary that the population in Pakistan receive
support as well We do have some projects running in Afghanistan that have been
active for some time. We have the food-for-work programme in Kabul where people
receive food for doing work like rebuilding schools. There are also health
programmes throughout Afghanistan that are run by local staff right now because
all the foreigners had to leave the country. We also have an elementary school
programme where girls too can go to get an education. That’s something that’s
very difficult, for girls to get an education in Afghanistan. AN: How does Caritas Germany work with
its local partners?LT: We hardly ever send anybody from Germany
to a country to do the work there. We’d rather work with our partners, which most
of the time are other Caritas organisations in that specific country. We give
them money and some support in the form of advice and counselling but it’s the
people themselves, the local Caritas organisation, that does the work there.AN: How does your agency decide which
people to help?LT: Our priority is the most vulnerable
people. Right now we are trying to establish programmes that mainly help people
who are most vulnerable like widows, elderly people, handicapped people or
children. Those are the so-called target groups. If it’s not a situation like
in Afghanistan, for example, we get applications from our partner
organisations, which ask us to support a certain programme. AN: How does Caritas Germany help
support the economies of countries in the Third World?LT: One of our principles is to buy goods
locally. Right now if you take Afghanistan, we try to buy everything in
Pakistan. We bought 1,000 tents in Pakistan and 10,000 blankets. To support the
region and economy there, rather than transferring goods from Western Europe,
is important. We’ve seen the situation where the local economy has broken down
because all the goods were brought in. In Kosovo, there was a factory of
mattresses that had to shut down because all the mattresses were brought in from
Western Europe. This is one of the things we would like to prevent by buying
most of our goods locally. AN: What challenges does the
organisation face in its aid effort?LT: The large number of natural catastrophes
can be hard to deal with at times. We have a lot of flooding. Last year we had
a huge flood in southeast Asia with 50 million people affected. Those are
things that don’t really get into the media that much any more so that makes it
harder to raise funds for those catastrophes. AN: In what area do you think the
agency has made the most positive impact on society? LT: Our greatest effort is working for a
more just society. We’re doing advocacy work in the different countries, trying
to make the people aware of the situation and trying to see the reasons for the
poverty. Those are things we have to develop on a long-term scale. That is
something that would really change the situation of people in the Third World
for a long time. What we’re trying to do is build up Caritas structures and support
our partner organisations in the different countries, so they can work more
independently for themselves. They can then become a strong voice within the
society of their country and have a positive impact on that society from their
own power.
A beekeeper inspects bees in Marseille December 18, 2009. Marseille's municipality has decided to introduce hives in various parks of the city to measure the pollution by taking samples and control ...
