Partners of the association
and important personalities
Petra Allmendinger
She came to Kenya in 1985 as a development worker for the German Development Service. In the late 1990s, she began building her own guest farm, “Sandai,” where she constructed a farmhouse and guesthouses—partly in the Kenyan clay building style. Today, she employs around 30 Kenyans in areas such as the kitchen, gardening, agriculture, driving services, safari guidance, weaving, a shop, a café, and guest care. In recent years, she has also acquired Kenyan citizenship.
Christopher Mwiragwa
To this day, the now over-70-year-old Christopher has remained loyal to our children’s home. He covers for the caregiver during holidays and advises her on educational matters.
The Sandai guest farm – www.africanfootprints.de
Sandai is located between the Aberdares and Mount Kenya, about 170 km, or three hours by car, north of Nairobi. At this guest farm, visitors can enjoy a holiday and attend safaris, yoga, drumming, painting, and weaving courses, experiencing Kenya in a particularly warm and authentic way.
For our Pamoja project, however, this guest farm serves as the hub for our association—essentially the base for contact with the children’s home. Petra and other people live here, acting as a link between the Pamoja children’s home and our association, as well as members of the Kenyan Pamoja-Machiuka C.B.O., the registered association in Kenya.
Interns can also stay here to prepare for their time at the children’s home. Some of the older children from the home complete internships at the guest farm to learn the work in the kitchen, weaving, garden, and agriculture, while also supplementing their pocket money. The weaving workshop even offers informal training, which one of the girls has already successfully completed.
Gitti Apholt
With this love for Kenya and the children there, along with her dedication and educational drive—she is a trained educator—she has accompanied the association from the start together with Petra and actively contributed to the establishment of the children’s home, not least by facilitating contact with the Evangelical Children’s Home in Herne, which significantly contributed to the project’s funding.
Since 2016, she has been the chairperson of the association. She places great importance on organizational, educational, and friendly support for those responsible in Kenya and the children at the home. Regular trips there, checking cash and receipts, and arranging and monitoring purchases, repairs, and necessary investments are carried out by her with passion and expertise, because simply transferring money is not enough…
Evangelical Children’s Home Herne, Explicato Youth Services, and the educational institution Fachpool
This contact was established through Gitti Apholt, who has been working here as an educator since 1979 and was able to convince the management of the need for a joint, project-oriented future. This was so convincing that the Evangelical Children’s Home Herne made generous donations for land and building construction in Pamoja! Many thanks for that!
The goal and self-interest was that educational measures and stays with young people from Germany could also take place there. Likewise, young people should be able to do an internship in Kenya to get to know the work at the children’s home. All three organizations are members of the association.
Conversio Institut Duisburg
We understand what drives you and your organization. Our goal is to guide processes with purpose, creativity, and participation, leading to a future that everyone can look forward to.
We, the board of the association, have commissioned the Conversio Institute to support us in our future development process.
