A foundation is campaigning for high-quality training in Africa. Four teachers are now coming to Germany to receive training themselves.
The process in Germany, when training as a plumber for example, is very structured. Vocational school units alternate with working in the training company. Following this, the trainee receives a certificate and becomes a state-recognised plumber. In Kenya the situation is different.
There are very few training centres and in some regions more than 70 per cent of young people are unemployed. Klaus Schwenk, who founded the ProKapsogo initiative 10 years ago, is convinced that only with proper training can young people be helped locally. "It's all about good quality training and helping people to help themselves," explains Schwenk. His initiative is at work in the Baringo County and the town of Kabernet in particular. Thanks to Schwenk's work, a school has already been established here. He is now seeking to help specifically with vocational education and training.
Four vocational school teachers from Kenya visited Augsburg for two weeks for this reason. They had a chance to look around the plumbing and building guilds in Augsburg and were given an insight into the training processes. Schwenk found like-minded and committed colleagues in Thomas Maier, the District Master Craftsman, Joachim Puhle, Head of the Guild of Builders, and Stanislaus Kaminski, director of the training centre of the Guild of Plumbers, who each did their part in taking care of the visit from East Africa.
For two weeks the four teachers went back to the classroom. In projects such as "rainwater use" and "gutter construction", they acquired expertise which they will be able to pass on to their pupils back home in Kabernet. Klaus Schwenk emphasized that this visit is not intended as a one-off. He explained, in fact, that it is the first step on the way to closer cooperation and mutual support. "New media and social networks might be able to help us with the exchange," says Maier, encouraging guests to ask if they have any questions. He also regards this successful project as the start of further visits of this type.
The two-week visit was funded in part by Baringo County, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), Sparkasse Augsburg, and the ProKapsogo foundation. It was not just the wealth of specialist knowledge and the experiences of the pre-Christmas period in Augsburg that the four guests took home. There was another surprise for them when they left. The Guild of Plumbers presented the guests with two laptops - one for each school.