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Kenya Offers Aid to Third World Germany

DW staff (nda)March 6, 2006

After hearing about the poverty-stricken victims of harsh social and labor market reforms in Germany, volunteers from a Kenyan hospital are flying in aid in the form of tea and coffee to help ease the suffering.

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Things are bad when the 26th poorest country in the world thinks you need helpImage: dpa

Germany, a country with such a bad self-image that it needed a 30-million-euro ($25-million) advertising campaign to convince the populace to be proud of their nation, could take another nosedive into collective depression when news gets out that volunteers from the 26th poorest nation on earth feel the need to send aid to help disadvantaged Germans.

The view from Kenya is that a section of German society is apparently so in need of relief that employees at the Tawfiq Hospital in Malindi vowed to help.

Now, those poor Germans who are feeling the chill of the German winter and the bite of the detested Hartz IV social and labor reforms are getting daily handouts of tea and coffee through a Kenyan charity based in the German capital.

Kenyan coffee to stave off winter cold and social hardship

Kaffeebohnen
Kenyan coffee is being flown in to help the poor of GermanyImage: Bilderbox

Through the Medical Direct Help in Africa (MDH) organization in Berlin, the volunteers from the hospital are providing hot beverages to those heading for the breadline thanks to the despised cuts in social welfare after hearing of Germany’s plight from a German doctor and a Protestant priest working in Kenya. They were shocked into action after discovering that even people in a rich country like Germany could lack sustenance.

Over 300 kilograms of Kenyan coffee have already arrived through Berlin’s Schönefeld airport. The charity will provide around 250 people with hot drinks on the special Mondays when it opens its doors for the poor of the city.