Partners of the association
and important personalities
We would like to express our gratitude to these individuals who played a key role in the establishment of the association and the realization of the Pamoja project and who continue to do so.
Petra Allmendinger
She came to Kenya in 1985 as a development aid worker for the German Development Service. At the end of the 1990s, she began building her own guest farm, “Sandai,” where she constructed a farmhouse and guest houses—partly built in the Kenyan mud-brick style. Today, she employs around 30 Kenyans in areas of cooking, gardening, agriculture, transportation, safari guidance, weaving, a shop, a café and guest services. In recent years, she has also acquired the Kenyan citizenship.
Christopher Mwiragwa
To this day, Christopher, now over 70, has remained loyal to our children’s home. He covers for the caregiver when she is on vacation 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 a three-hour drive north of Nairobi. At this guest farm, visitors can enjoy a holiday, attend safaris as well as yoga, drumming, painting and weaving classes and experience 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 who act as a link between the Pamoja children’s home and our association live here, 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 do internships at the guest farm to learn about working in the kitchen, weaving, gardening, and agriculture, while also earning some 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 beginning together with Petra and actively contributed to the establishment of the children’s home. Notably, 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 first chairperson of the association. The organizational, educational, and friendly support of those responsible in Kenya and the children of the home is very important to her. She carries out regular trips there, checks the cash register and receipts, and arranges and reviews purchases, repairs and necessary investments 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 had 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 in Herne made generous donations for land and building construction in Pamoja! Many thanks for that!
The goal and self-interest was that educational activities and visits of 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 defines and motivates you and your organization. Our goal is to use purpose, creativity, and participation to support processes that lead to a future everyone can look forward to.
We, the association’s board of directors, have commissioned the Conversio Institute to support us in our future development process.
