| |
| Partnership with ASSB arises
by gahtering |
 |
| Due to face to face contacts,
appreciation and trust in each other's personal situation is
enhanced. Again and again, mutual appreciation and friendship
is a strong motivation to continue the struggle for a better,
more united world. |
|
| German Visitor to Bangladesh |
|
| "Please come to Bangladesh":
Our friends never miss an opportunity to invite us to discover
their country. Whether as a visitor, a volunteer, or as a project
partner, everyone is hailed with music and flower garlands.
Hospitality is a celebration; everyone tries to honor the guest
with delicious specialties which are not part of the usual menus.
Too bad, however, that the guests are not really fond of hot
chilies. Everyone tries to read desires from the visitors'eyes.
Most of the guests don't speak Bangla so everyone tries to communicate
in broken English. |
|
 |
|
| The Staff is pleased
with the visit of friends from Shanti |
|
| The chaotic traffic, the
crowd of people and animals, sounds and colours are bewildering.
And there it is: severe poverty. Children and women having hardly
enough to eat, huts built from cardboard and tin erected like
tents between the railroads. And then, support activities in
the villages. We become acquainted with some of the families
and the lifestyle in the villages without power supply or running
water. We visit schools and women groups, accompany village
development activists and medical teams. We take part in the
womens' daily life and their successes from work on the projects. |
|
 |
|
| Visit of a project: the
Eickhoff couple and the Moyeen family |
|
|
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| Bengali visitors in Germany |
|
Foreign language, unfamiliar
dishes and having to stay unescorted causes a feeling of uneasiness
in our guests from Bangladesh. People from rural areas sometimes
feel as if they were in a Science Fiction film: Hightech and
machinery in households, warm showers and luxury bathrooms.
However, where are the servants? There is a road to every village,
every house can be reached by car even if it is isolated. Many
of them are decorated with flower pots. The Bengali visitors
admire German timeliness, perfect organization, dependability,
safety and economic wealth.
However, where is the time to laugh and celebrate, to chat and
to play, to to put make-up on each others faces, to change clothes,
to cook together, delight in being together and time for it.
Thus, they sympathize with the loneliness of our aged and sick
people, our children who cannot profit from extended families.
The stereotype of the paradise in Europe becomes relative. Nevertheless,
they also experience friendship and respect for their activities
in Bangladesh. They can convince themselves how people in Germany
get involved with campaigns for people in Bangladesh, voluntarily
and affectionately. Abar dekha hobe! See you again! |
|
| Abar dekha hobe! Got to see
you soon! |
|
| Invitations of partner organizations |
|
| The partner organizations
of ASSB regularly invite activists. In 2001, Ms Meherun Nessa
Chobi was invited of the Marie-Schlei-Society to a conference
at Bonn in order to give a lecture on women's rights in islamic
countries. In 2005, Ms Minara Moyeen went to Berlin to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
The topic was gender equality - 10 years after the World Women
Conference in Bejing. Also the children welfare orginization
invite every now and then to church congresses and public relation
in schools, congregations and associations in order to introduce
life and work in their project countries. |
|
| Usually, the activists
of ASSB stay with friends of Shanti Partnership Bangladesh e.V.
or of Bondhu Bangladesh e.V. where they get involvedwith european
culture. |
|
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Health
