You are listening to Herzenssache, project whispers with Madamfo Ghana, the podcast that takes you to Ghana.
Christine and Bettina tell moving stories, reveal secrets and share personal experiences.
Come with us on this special journey. Let's go!
Hello, welcome to the Madamfo Ghana podcast.
I am Christine and with my husband Helmut.
And I have been supporting this great organization since 2015.
I am very happy that I can take you along with Bettina, the founder of Madamfo Ghana
to Ghana and give you direct, individual insights.
I will report something exciting and definitely surprising.
Bettina, perhaps you could introduce yourself briefly?
Yes, that's really sweet, Christine. I'm so happy that we're both getting this up and running.
How long have we had this baby in our heads?
I am sitting in Akkrakustine, sitting in Munich.
Therefore, if there is somehow a little delay, then we would just have to forgive you.
There's nothing we can do about it. We 're 6, 7,000 kilometers apart.
I am Bettina, as Christine just said.
I founded an aid organization called Madamfo Ghana.
And I am currently in Accra and have been living in Ghana for over 20 years.
And why I am here and what we are doing here, that is what we want to
Podcast now appear in the next, I don't know, 500 or 1000 episodes.
We have not set ourselves a goal.
Christine, what are we doing today?
First episode, I'm so excited.
I could now imagine that our listeners and viewers might be interested in
what mission you are actually pursuing, or Madamfo Ghana.
Because there is a little something behind it.
And there is a lot to do in Ghana and which areas are most important to you? What is the focus?
I think it would be quite interesting to know.
Yes, then maybe I'll start for those who don't
or who don’t even know what Madamfo Ghana means.
Madamfo Ghana is one language of the many, many languages ​​spoken in Ghana.
And that means friends.
So Madamfo Ghana translated means friends of Ganas.
Yes, and what do we do?
I flew to Ghana for the first time in 2001.
I am a trained pediatric nurse and worked at the bush clinic in 2001.
So in the middle of nowhere.
And the bush is not to be judged negatively at all, but really in the middle of nowhere at Legosomchi I have
and I quickly noticed on my first visit that
that the people here do not need us at all, in quotation marks, but they know very well how to
how they shape their lives and what goals they have and dreams they want to realize.
But the resources are simply lacking.
And that is why, after my first five-week stay in
I flew home and told my family, you all have to help.
And I was just so lucky, my grandpa, who unfortunately is no longer alive, but who was there back then.
He was the chief physician at our hospital in Hagen, where I come from.
And he activated his entire circle of friends and collected funds.
Told everyone that I was in Ghana in the
Bush clinic and that there is a shortage of many things.
And basically that’s how I got my first money and then I took this money with me to Ghana and started
the locals in this clinic, so there was a local medical officer.
That's something like maybe from the level, he was a doctor doing an internship with us in Germany.
And I worked and helped in the clinic with a local nurse and midwife.
Yes, and so I got stuck and then one thing led to another and another
and with all these stories we can probably really last until retirement.
That may take a little while.
We can tell a lot of stories there.
Yes, but that's why I came to Ghana, the desire was simply to help.
Yes, great and I think in the next episodes we will see that
or other topic maybe also from you the listeners viewers.
You are welcome to send us an email so that we can answer your questions in detail.
Well, I definitely find this all incredibly exciting.
And I have to honestly say, I have been to Ghana twice with my husband and
I was really able to see for myself the great work that Madamfo Ghana is doing,
which really impressed me a lot.
That is also the cheerfulness of the people.
Well, I don’t know how you feel, but you are probably
That's why I stayed in Ghana, because the people there are just great.
Yes, the fact that it has now become Ghana was actually relatively pragmatic.
So it should be Africa.
I've always had this kind of drive.
Something drew me here.
So I am personally firmly convinced that it is no coincidence that I ended up here.
There is more to it than that.
The friendliness, yes, as I said , in the beginning it was actually pragmatic.
My French is just incredibly bad.
And Ghana is one of the few English-speaking countries in
West Africa, already surrounded by Togo, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
And they all speak French.
And then further north to the Sahel zone, where everyone speaks French too.
And that's why Ghana was good, because I noticed that my school English didn't help much either.
Of course, this has simply improved over the years.
That's why it was Ghana.
Well, that was simply due to the language.
And of course, when I first arrived here , things weren't like they are today.
Well, I mean, we are now, let's say, roughly 25 years later.
Now we have a completely international airport, a local airport.
But when I first arrived here, it was a small building with a wooden camp.
And that wasn't, well, that wasn't Düsseldorf where I flew from, but I arrived here.
And there was no cell phone, so I could n't send anyone a WhatsApp and ask them to please pick me up or something.
That was it, total chaos actually.
And my very first memory is of this super friendly taxi driver.
I was supposed to be picked up from the airport.
But that didn't work because we simply couldn't communicate with each other.
So it was not like today, where you say, when I land I will send you
a WhatsApp or I'll just call you on my cell phone and tell you I'm here.
Something went wrong in the background.
Anyway, I was standing in the dark of night, because we are in the tropics here.
The sun rises at 6 a.m. and sets at 6 p.m., plus or minus a quarter of an hour.
So I was standing here at 8 in the evening or so on the floor Dustern, the airport, well the building, was emptying.
As a young girl, I didn't feel safe or happy on my own, can I say that?
I didn't know anything about it, but it was so strange in the dark.
That means we probably won't. Yes, I understand.
Yes, it was uneasy, exactly.
And then I only knew the district.
I only knew the part of town where I had to go, in Accra, which
The capital city of Ganas, where, I do n't know, about 10 million people live.
Probably, that's true, well maybe not that many, but an incredible number.
And I only hold the district.
And it’s as if you were in Berlin now, I have to go to Kreuzberg or to Munich to see you in Pasing,
but you have no street, you have no house number, you have nothing.
So you have the district and that's it.
And this taxi ride, he said, yes, yes of course, I can drive you there and I got in there
and then we set off into the dark night from the airport in that direction.
Yes, it's a 3, 4 hour drive or so.
And I had no idea, no map, nothing.
And I was really a little scared and just thought, oh my God, I hope I get there safe and sound
and he doesn't drop me off somewhere or anything worse.
And this taxi driver was so nice, if you are listening to this podcast, we do it with English subtitles,
then please contact me, go to our website Madamfo Ghana.
Miracles happen all the time, so we can invite him to the podcast,
He will definitely remember me too.
Exactly, he was so nice and I told him the district, let's go there
and then we were in the district and then he asked around.
He asked everyone if they knew this house that I had described to him, where I had to go, and so on.
Christine, you ca n't even imagine it, I think nowadays,
I know if that would still work, but that was my
first encounter with a real Ganah,
So from here to home, now, for me now to home.
And that was, I say, because of the friendliness and the helpfulness and so on.
And that is really something that hit me during my first stay,
that everyone was ready to help somehow and stopped their own affairs,
to see who can help in some way.
Yes, I think so too, that is really great and you just said,
That was your first encounter with a Ganah and you already told us in the introduction,
you then asked your relatives to collect donations for the first well,
for the village you were in.
And now it's like this, it just continued somehow and you can't handle everything on your own.
How did you then find people who supported you in some way,
like Victor, for example, who is your right-hand man, let's say.
So, she's there right now...
Right from the left and straight across.
Well that's great, a white woman comes to us and wants to help us
and I support that now and not just for a day or two,
but I am directing my professional life there with Madamfo Ghana.
That's really great too.
So maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you found your employees.
Yes, that's great. You've given me a great opportunity there.
Exactly, so maybe I'll just continue the story a little bit more briefly.
So, then I arrived and then I went to Legbo Somschi.
And there I have, well, this is a lake in the middle of Ghana, well not quite in the middle,
Maybe if you listen to the podcast,
We can also link you to it in the show notes.
So this is a lake where I basically landed, having arrived after continuing my journey.
And that's where I met the locals for the very first time.
Well, the inhabitants of the village , of course, especially the chief.
So the chief is the tribal chief, the headman, the boss of the village.
And he has me with his family, especially his wife and his daughters,
tucked under her wing.
And that's where I met Emanuel.
Emanuel, who has since sadly passed away, much too early,
He built a small toilet there, a so-called KVIP.
We might then talk about different types of toilets and how to build them,
Let's make our own podcast about it.
Anyway, he built a toilet facility there.
And he was the only one who spoke English.
Because the people in the village mostly only spoke their local language,
in this case Zwie, which I did not master.
And Emanuel was my lifeline because the poor guy always had to translate.
Then I quickly became friends with him,
because he realized that I am not one of those who comes there
and says, I have now brought all my knowledge from Europe with me.
And I know exactly how to do all this.
Instead, he noticed that I was integrating.
So I just went along with it.
I was now part of the village community.
I slept in a tent , which was also pretty scary,
because the people were really nice to me
and helped me and everything not to eat.
Despite you are not at home
and you are a white young woman alone in the middle of the bush.
So you're just afraid.
And I felt more than uneasy,
even though I had no clues,
that something would happen to me, nonetheless.
So 2 o'clock in the morning alone in the tent, at night,
other thoughts sometimes occur to me.
And where I was particularly afraid,
It's always snakes or spiders crawling into my tent.
And that's why I always put my things and stuff like that,
that everything is in view
and that nothing could crawl underneath or anything like that.
And then it rains, well when it rains here in the tropics,
then it really rains.
Speaking of rain, I mean, that has changed in the last 25 years.
You also have in Bavaria,
We don't even want to start talking about the flood.
But that means it rains every day for half a year.
Simply a different climate zone.
If you are just reading in a normal little tent,
Are you so afraid that you will be washed away?
So I had these cases.
Yes, it was a bit on the slope.
So if you go to our website, www.madamfo-ghana.de.
Then you will also see these pictures if you look,
about us, there is a small film and pictures,
who we are and what we do and so on.
And there I was in a tent on a slope
and was so afraid every night that it would start to rain
and that I would simply be swept away.
And I was so scared of the snakes and the spiders.
And when you're out there in the bush,
then there are lots of trees, palm trees of course, but also bananas.
These plantains, which you can get in Germany now,
these big yellow bananas, not the normal bananas, but the plantains.
And the palm leaves, when they beat against each other in the wind,
then you think it's raining.
This is when radiated stars and so are
and I always have that, oh god, now it's starting to rain.
Oh God, it's starting to rain now.
Slept for another five minutes, oh God, now it's starting to rain.
And after a while Emanuel took away my fear,
said you don't have to worry about what is.
Yeah, we had that on and so on.
Exactly, and Emanuel was my first employee, so to speak,
although employees at the beginning was nonsense, so I had nothing,
So, penniless, not in that sense, but no plan now.
I didn’t go there, I said I’m going to start a company
the largest aid organization in West Africa or something,
I just wanted to help out at the clinic and share my knowledge.
And then I met Emanuel, he was a building technician.
This is something between engineer, architect,
So he can build buildings independently, safe buildings.
And his best friend was Victor.
And Victor has basically been in the background the whole time
stayed a bit and so I, so during the first stay,
I met Emanuel, who then helped me
and then Victor.
And Emanuel and Victor were very, very good friends.
And that was later when we said, man,
we are establishing an organization for tax reasons
and that's how it continued afterwards.
So I have my first two current employees, as I said,
Emanuel was unfortunately found deceased.
Exactly, there by the lake.
And now I have to ask again what about this Bosomt,
as you say, because Helmut and I were there too.
And you always have to imagine
that it is very hot in Ghana, yes.
Well, it's already 35, 40 degrees, yes.
And we were also in a very nice accommodation,
that was really sweet, and then we had right by the lake
and then we think, oh great, it's so hot.
Now let's go into the lake and cool off.
Yes, of course that was a total mistake,
because the lake is bathtub temperature.
So you can imagine that it is hot outside and hot inside,
So it doesn’t matter at all, you sweat again afterwards just like before,
So there was no cooling down at all, right?
That's right, so the people who are now all
So back then it was basically a personal initiative,
Well, I just started it through my trip,
Now we are 25 years later and of course we have a lot of people,
who work for us, but you actually told me
such a good keyword, which is perhaps really important,
to tell you, we do not work with foreigners,
without anything, so this should not be understood negatively,
but on the contrary positive, we only work with locals,
we only work with Ganan, so we don’t fly anyone in,
no staff, no architects, no project managers or anything.
Exactly, exactly that, what you are saying now, that was exactly the reason
why Helmut and I said , well we always thought,
We just had our own idea of ​​how it should work,
if you want to help in Africa, if you want to support the people
and then we always thought, as I do development aid in general
defined like this, it somehow cannot work,
that I come there, as a European and I say, I tell you now,
where it's going, you have to do this and that and you have to live this and that,
That is not the case, but rather that people are picked up where they are
and then in a village they just need shoes,
more of a school than a toilet facility, which I personally
maybe I don’t understand it at all, but I don’t have to,
because it is their life.
That is definitely one thing, you are absolutely right,
the other side perhaps, which we will discuss in our introductory episode
can be described is that we carry out all our projects ourselves.
So that means we have bricklayers, sometimes I can't think of the words,
you have to go in there, carpenter, joiner, so we have bricklayers, joiners,
Social worker, nurse, Mala, roofer, Mala, Klemmtner,
all our own people, these are all people from Madamfo Ghana,
So our Madamfo Ghana construction team, I always say,
This means that when we carry out a project,
no, here they say Contractor, what is that called in German,
no contractor, no company, we don't have to hire anyone else
or engage someone who carries out the projects, for example
builds your kindergarten in Brahoho . Our employees do all this
and of course you save a lot of donations,
because a building contractor naturally wants to make money
and there is nothing wrong with that, so if you have a company,
you have to make a profit, and that's perfectly fine.
But we are dealing with donations and not just for our own house
or something like that and of course you have to , I still want to say fennig,
you have to watch every cent to make sure the money really arrives
and the people who carry out these projects, starting with Victor
as project manager over the foreman, i.e. the foreman at the construction site
to the individual professional sectors that we have just mentioned,
Maurer Klemter and so on, who do this, are all local
and that means they can work with the project recipients,
that's what I call it now, or with the villagers or townspeople,
who now go to school, kindergarten or whatever, and communicate
and in their own way bring this project to life
and I think that makes a huge difference and of course it saves money
and you do everything on an equal footing. It is the locals who build for the locals
and who realize their projects together, of course we also have know-how.
Nowadays, with the Internet and so on, knowledge is available, and there is nothing wrong with that.
But people are simply not brought to where we have bricklayers and so on,
because I think the best development cooperation you can do
It will create jobs, that is, people who will be paid and who will also bring in some good money.
Another point that is very important is
Because their own people are building it, they also have a completely different relationship to it,
what they do. And they also feel much more responsible and in charge
and don’t say, well, someone will build it, then put a school there,
but I preferred a well, because what am I supposed to do with it and it is none of my business,
because we were already the second time, when we were back in Brahova
and visited the school we had previously built,
then it was still there and was cared for and the maintenance was also carried out
and it was simply their responsibility and they accepted it,
because they say we wanted this school and now we are taking care of it.
I think that is always very important.
Yes, you are right and that is perhaps another point that we can now make to explain,
How you came to a project like this, you could perhaps tell us.
So we have done, who are we and what do we do a little
and then maybe we can still tell, if now so
a village community, for example, how does that come about?
Well, that was already the case in the past.
Now I'll tell you about the back, from my side.
So for us it was like this: after a few stays in Africa, which we spent more like holidays,
Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, then thought, so if something should change there,
then you have to invest in education so that people get more education,
that children have more opportunities to learn reading, writing and arithmetic and then progress further.
But then I can't go and say, ' Hello, I have a big suitcase full of money here.
and now I'm starting here, somewhere.
And then we actually looked for an organization with which we could do it.
And then we came across these large organizations, and none of that really convinced us.
Are we actually coincidental, as you say, everything is somehow determined
and there are no coincidences, we came across Bettina and therefore you and there.
And then I just sent an email and said, yes, we would like to build a school in Ghana
and how much does it cost and how do we do it?
And then you wrote to me and then of course we had a much too big project in mind
and then you said, a primary school with three classrooms, which cost 25,000 euros at the time
and then we said, okay, that's a good ending, that's okay, we'll pay for it and then we'll just get started.
And today everyone says, you are good, you transfer the money and you don’t know them
and you don't know what she's doing with it and whether it's getting through and whether it's coming into being.
But it was just such a nice contact beforehand
and I also had the feeling that it would work.
So I paid it in three installments and three months later the thing was finished
and I had at the beginning, before I saw, so that costs an Excel table, it said exactly,
how much sand and how many stones and therefore all the material and what labor costs are incurred
and then this sum came out and I paid it
and three months later it was finished and at Easter 2016 we inaugurated it.
So everything has its purpose and everything was neat
and just when we inaugurated it , we really
1000 people were there at this inauguration ceremony to see us.
It was scorching hot and I have to confess , I'm more of a 25 degree type
and not the 45 degree type and in front of me was a table with Lauzersekt.
I can tell you, when you 're out with Christine, it's always too warm.
Yes and then there was this table with champagne bottles
and I said to Helmut, I hope we don't have to drink them, because they were standing there in the blazing sun,
but it was madness and various speeches were given, the Chief spoke,
then one from the Ministry of Culture or the Ministry of Education, then Emmanuel from Madamfo,
then someone who made contact between Madamfo and the village
and so then there was dancing and there was a poem from a girl,
Of course I didn't understand a word because it was strange, but again and again there was a refrain like that,
So I was able to interpret that somehow
and it was really great and they were so grateful that they now have this school
and that simply convinced us that we subsequently implemented even more projects,
then similar to what Bettina did at the beginning, with friends, with families,
with customers from my husband's carpentry business and so it goes on
and is actually a very beautiful story.
I can also remember very well that Tanya, who runs our office in Germany,
I was told that a Mrs Fischer from Munich called, you have to call her back,
she would like to do a project.
And now we are like many years later, it's so nice that I have a friendship...
Yes, yes, yes, it's almost ten years old, we almost have to celebrate.
So next time I 'm with you in Munich, we'll toast.
Exactly, that's how our friendship developed
and that is exactly what we want to tell you in this podcast, Christiane,
really from the ground and how things are realized,
that perhaps one can look behind this big word development cooperation,
Projects abroad and so on, maybe we can help clarify things a little bit
and explain to people what something like this could look like here.
But at the same time we both had a little chat about our personal lives,
because there are just so many stories to tell that can be told in such an official project report
or cannot accommodate on a website.
Yes, and not everything can be done via social media.
So I think that maybe it should be explained how the money gets from Germany to Ghana,
why is it so uncomplicated, yes.
So that is, for example, a topic that might be interesting to mention
or you can have other people here who will sit here instead of me
and are sometimes interviewed, who also chat a little about their own business.
We'll then put them through the wringer together.
Exactly, I already have a few ideas.
Yes, well, dear ones, now you have heard the first episode of Madamfo Ghana and its podcast
and I am curious to hear what kind of feedback you will give us
and who can definitely look forward to the next episode.
Definitely Christine.
So, this half hour has just passed.
What I would like to mention , you said it earlier,
We would like to encourage you to join in.
So this is not a talk between me and Christine, Christine and me,
but if you have any questions, suggestions, we are happy to receive any feedback,
because this is new territory for us too
and we hope you will enjoy listening as much as we do,
like making the podcast for us
and it is also in the videocast, there are both formats,
send us an email to Podcast, Podcast at madamfo-ghana.de
You can write us feedback there , anything that concerns you.
Of course we hope for positive feedback, but if you have any criticism, please say
We are looking forward to it, have a look at our website,
madamfo, so friends, madamfo-ghana.de
and if you watch madamfo-ghana, you can also find us on Instagram and Facebook.
We look forward to hearing from you, like it, share it, please share the podcast,
tell your friends, family and those you know,
There is now a podcast that explains to us how to do projects elsewhere
and we still have many stories to tell
and we are looking forward to seeing what happens next.
So take care, see you on the next episode, bye.
See you, bye, bye Christine.
Bye Bettina.