Generic – Kaule e.V. – Organisation for socially sustainable Agro Projects

After applying for the competition „Ideen Initiative Zukunft“ (“Concepts Initiative Future“) of the drugstore chain “dm” and the German UNESCO commission in October 2010, it was a great pleasure for Kaule e.V. to rank among the winners. In January 2011 we could present ourselves as a nominated project and we could inform about the mission and development in Kaule, Nepal at a display stand in the dm-chain store “Hohenzollernring” in Cologne. Now, the dm-chain store “Rudolfsplatz” has invited us to a celebratory award ceremony on March 4th, 2011. Aurelia Herder and Alfio Muscia came as representatives of Kaule e.V. and received the symbolic check of 1000€. During the award ceremony, the relationship to the dm stores in Cologne was strengthened as the branch manager Manuel Alvarez assured further cooperation and support to Kaule e.V.

The organisation Kaule e.V. and the project in Kaule, Nepal received good news at the end of February. The drugstore chain “dm” and the German UNESCO commission called on us to participate in the competition “Concepts Initiative Future” till October the 15th, 2010. The aim of the competition was to support those people, who dedicate to the sustainable development of our society and who have good ideas for the future. Furthermore, people, who weren’t engaged yet in the topic of sustainability, should be advised to do so.
Kaule e.V. participated in the competition with its project in Nepal and achieves as trophy money a grant amount of 1000 Euro. This ensures the financing of the current project year. In addition to this, the organisation could introduce itself and bring attention to the project at a “dm” market in Cologne on January 2011.
We are really pleased about this information and thank “dm” and the German UNESCO commission for the prize!

After hours of selection and post-preparation, the first photos of 2009 for the Kaule project are online. Photo subtitles and descriptions will be added gradually.

Hence, for those who want to take a first glance, just go and check out the photo gallery in preparation.

Photos of 2009

We were shocked by the notice of the death of Sebastian Oltmann and his fiancée Anna Bichat, who lost their lives in a severe traffic accident in Benin, West Africa in May 2009.
In the beginning of the past year, we addressed amongst others, the representation of IAAS (International Association of Students in Agricultural and Related Sciences) at the University of Bonn with the request for potential interested persons and combatants for our project, whereupon Sebastian as their president answered himself. Consequently, he participated at three of our meetings, played a consultant part in the working group “project planning” and expressed his intention to contribute further in our project after his stay in Africa.
In the little time we knew Sebastian, we found him to be a very open-minded, extremely likeable and immensely dedicated person. In this spirit, his death is a personal loss for us. We send our thoughts, our sympathy and our wishes of solace and strength in this tragic time to the loved ones of Sebastian Oltmann and Anna Bichat.

On Thursday, September 11th 2008, Alina Schick and Patrick Joisten took part for the first time at the regular round table of the German-Nepali-Society e.V. in Cologne representing our association and its board. The meeting was directed by the Nepal honorary consul of Cologne, Mr. Ram Pratap Thapa. This meeting, open for all people interested in Nepal, takes place every second Thursday of the month. More information is presented on the society’s website www.deutsch-nepal.de. During the September meeting we were able to present our project in Kaule. Our listeners were openly interested and showed great attention. They gave us useful advice as well as extra information and appreciation of the actual situation in the country.

Mr. Thapa offered to have a two page report about our project and our association in the next issue of “Nepal –Information”, a magazine published twice year by the society. The article is being prepared. Beyond this the consul invited us to attend to the Nepali “Festival of Lights”, organized by the society on November 2^nd in Cologne, and to the meeting of NGOs, involved in the Nepal development, taking place in Cologne on November15th.

A couple of members of our association took part in an event called “So close and yet so far away – Development Politics create new Perspectives” with Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germanys Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, in the “LVR-Horionhouse” of Cologne-Deutz.

The minister – by the way the senior among the federal ministers, holding office since 1998 – declared in her opening speech as well as during the following interesting and partly critical and controversial panel discussion, how important the hereby created continuity is concerning country and government as well as international connections, and that the German Federal Parliament increased the budget of her ministry despite the financial reductions in all other political areas in order to slowly consolidate the federal budget. The concrete spending of money by the ministry and the objectives will be concentrated and selected according to the eight millennium criteria for development aid agreed upon by the United Nations. In order to accomplish more efficiency projects will be internationally coordinated.

The four Cologne Members of Parliament (Dr. Rolf Mützenich, Marti Dörmann, Dr. Lale Akgün and Prof. Karl Lauterbach) who hat invited to this event later sent a letter to the minister and her ministry in which they personally recommended our project. We thank them for this and hope for cooperation with the ministry.