"It's not only food"
My wife Sabine and I moved from Germany to Namibia with our children in 2007. We quickly overcame initial difficulties and the economic success of our lodge was not long in coming. We quickly arrived in Namibia, in our new home, and were integrated. We felt that we were protected, accompanied and blessed. The desire to give something back to the country and its people from the good fortune we had grown more and more. We set off and looked for suitable projects that we could get involved in and very quickly found what we were looking for.
In a township of Okahandja, we found Kauna, who has been running a center since 2003, where she initially looked after people with HIV and hepatitis and later became increasingly involved in the care of small children, pre-school education and afternoon care. Of course, these children also had to be provided with food, as the parents are often unable to feed the children properly.
We were presented with a frightening picture. Very young children, some of whom had walked several kilometers to the soup kitchen and then gratefully received a warm meal from the cooks. These were images that moved us deeply and are etched in our hearts.
How our heart project came about "Stephan's Soupkitchen"
At first, we were able to feed around 50 children with the resources available to us. It hurt our souls to see again and again that many children had to be sent away because there was not enough food. The children's eyes, their pain, was difficult for us to bear. And so we set out to get support. We are now able to give around 1500 children a warm meal 3 times a week.
Of course we have made a lot of progress, but we are still a long way from reaching our goal. 3 times a week also means that the children still have to go hungry on 4 days and the number of children is also constantly increasing. It is a good and wonderful feeling to make a difference and to share your happiness with other people and especially with children. But we also strive to ensure that our hard work of building up the project is sustainable in the long term, because the children are counting on us.
But we can't do it alone!
I would like to thank everyone who feels touched here and would like to support us in our work against child hunger and say thank you to God.
Interview with English subtitles