Collaboration with project partners is an essential part of the way we work. In all our projects, we have local NGOs or schools as partners with whom we develop the projects and make decisions together. We could never bring all the knowledge and experience that our partners – our local experts – have to the table from Austria alone.
This partnership approach is key to promoting the sustainability of our projects. By working closely with various partners, we are able to pool different perspectives, expertise and resources. This leads to a holistic and sustainable implementation of our projects.
In addition, working with partners creates broader acceptance and support in the community, which significantly increases the chances of success for our projects.
This is the best way for us to contribute to long-term and sustainable positive change in our project regions.
Babul was born in the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the mid-1960s. Even before he was of school age, he sold roasted nuts and other snacks on the street to support his mother and siblings financially, as the family suffered from great poverty.
Through a lucky twist of fate and hard work, he was given the opportunity to attend school and later joined the former partner organization of Austrian Doctors as a cook. Dr. Waldmann got to know him at the beginning of the 1990s and helped him with donations to start his big dream of a school for children from the poorest backgrounds.
Babul founded the NGO “Glory Future Model School”, which is the partner of our school projects in Dhaka. Almost 2,000 children now attend the schools founded by Babul. In addition, Babul and the NGO are our partners for the training center and the medical project in Dhaka as well as for the Elisabeth Bernecker Community and Health Center Gazipur.
“It is my daily motivation to help children from poor families to have a better start into life then I had. It makes me very happy to see what we archived during the years. Every day while walking through Manda area I meet former students of our school and see how their living condition has improved due to the possibility to go to school.”
At the end of the 1980s, Dr. Werner Waldmann met Prado Brother Ephrem in Howrah, the poor sister city of Kolkata. Brother Ephrem had the vision of founding a school for the poorest children “to help them to become good citizens of India”.
The foundation stone for the St. Francis Assisi School was laid in the early 1990s. Here, severely disadvantaged children have the opportunity to attend school and thus escape the cycle of illiteracy and poverty. In 1998, the school received the “Writers Award” and was named the “most humanitarian school in West Bengal”.
Brother Ephrem passed away in 2021. The school is now run by another Prado brother, Brother Marcus.
“I am honored to continue the great work that brother Ephrem started more than 30 years ago. The level of poverty is still high, and therefore many children have to work instead of going to school. It is great to see how eager the children are to learn in our St. Francis Assisi School.”
John grew up in great poverty in the area where Eroret School is located today. As the youngest and only one of 13 siblings, he was privileged to attend school. Having experienced first-hand the difference that schooling made to his life, he developed an early desire to found a school for Maasai children.
In 2005, he founded the Eroret School together with his wife Esther. His dream of providing education for children from the Maasai community thus became a reality.
“I am so happy to see the children coming to school every day and to know how big the impact of education will be in their lives. Thanks to Austrian Doctors we provide education and a daily meal to the children. The new deep well will also help us to be more independent in terms of food security. This will bring a big change to our project and the whole community.”
Rose Omina grew up in Awasi, near the border with Uganda. As idyllic as life there may seem, it is very hard for the population. The HIV rate is extremely high, making many children orphans. There are very few opportunities for work, so many people live off what they grow in their fields. Due to climate change and its consequences, people are facing even greater challenges. Because a failed harvest means starvation.
Rose worked for decades as a social worker in the slum areas of Nairobi. In her home town of Awasi, she founded the women’s initiative Mary Hill Selfhelp Group together with other residents in 2017, which has been supported by Austrian Doctors since 2018. After her retirement in 2021, Rose moved from Nairobi back to Awasi to devote herself full-time to the projects she started.
On April 24, 2024, our long-standing project partner Rose Omina passed away after a short, serious illness. She leaves behind a huge gap, which will be filled with full commitment by the dedicated staff at our Nursery School and the Awasi Community Center. Through the projects Rose started, her vision for a fairer distribution of opportunities for the impoverished population and access to education for the many children in Awasi lives on. Her two children, Christine and Desmond, have now taken over the management of the two projects and continue to run them in Rose’s spirit.
Severin Schwaiger will be happy to help you.
