For about 30 years now AWO (Workers’ Welfare), succeeded in 2005 by AWO International, has been co-operating with non-government organisations in India and Nepal. The ultimate ambition is to fight poverty in that region: the idea is to enable disadvantaged communities to initiate and carry out self-determined development processes by improving their livelihood. The joint work focuses on the development of integrative social security systems. Now the regional office in Nepal allows accompanying, coordinating and evaluating the projects in South Asia in a much better way. Another aim for the improved local capacities is to increase the sustainable effect of the supported projects on a long-term basis.
Guests attending the inaugural act included among others the German ambassador Verena Gräfin von Roedern and the treasurer of the Nepalese
Social Welfare Council (SWC), Ratna Bahadur Gaha Magar, as well as representatives of German organisations in Nepal, like e.g. the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the German Development Service (DED) or the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and naturally representatives of all Indian and Nepalese partner organisations. On behalf of AWO International attended its chairman Rudi Frick and the managing director Ingrid Lebherz
The patio of the office displayed presentation boards on which the project partners from India, Nepal and the Philippines informed about their work: Action for Agricultural Renewal in Maharashtra (AFARM), Madhyam Foundation (MAH), Maharashtra Arogya Mandal (MAM), National Institute for Woman, Child & Youth Development (NIWCYD), Organization for the Service of Mankind – Society for Eco-Development & Voluntary Action (MSS SEVA) for India, Friends of Sankhu (FOS), SAHAMATI, SAH, Society for Participatory Cultural Education (SPACE) for Nepal and Kinaadman Research Center (KRC) for the Philippines.
Rudi Frick opened the ceremony by welcoming all the guests. Following that the German ambassador appreciated the long-term good cooperation between Nepal and Germany, emphasizing the broad spectrum of jointly realized projects. Ratna Bahadur Gaha Magar stressed in his speech that transparency on part of foreign organisations towards the new government was of vital importance. An issue to which Ingrid Lebherz referred directly in her contribution: AWO Intern
ational obviously regarded itself as a guest in the country, she said. And since the organisation worked with public funds, she continued, it was actually obliged to transparency. She told Ratna Bahadur Gaha Magar that he was welcome anytime to see that for himself in the Nepal Office of AWO International.
Next came words of greeting by R. S. Patil from Pune, India, who works as a local financial advisor for AWO International, and by Eileen Gehrke, head of the Nepal office. The highlight of the afternoon was the moment when the German ambassador cut the red ribbon at the entrance of the office. This was the symbolic act to open and to inaugurate the office officially.
