Concern about families in Germany
While the August earthquake in Haiti has been unexpectedly dominant for our foundation, something else was pushed to the background: the floods in Germany. The tormential rains that hit different aeras of Germany in July. At that time, I received many messages from our friends and partners in Latin America. They wanted to know how we were doing here.
We expressed this solidarity from Latin America to our friends who were hit in Germany by the floods. Especially to the city of Stolberg, where where we have connections to. We were told that a 90year of lady barely made it out of her house before midnight, when it was flooded to the ceiling the first time in history.
A message of solidarity from “south to north”
In 1998, Honduras was flooded by hurricane Mitch, which I remember well. Back then, the capital Tegucigalpa was flooded 12 meters in some areas. National archives were lost and 80 bridges were destroyed across the country. I was involved in disaster relief that took years, we build a new village for 200 families. The images from the news in Germany past July reminded me of that time. And they reminded others of more recent floods. In Haiti, in Nicaragua or in El Salvador (photo above from 2020) and many other places. We sent a letter to the mayor of Stolberg. Along with our message of solidarity, we sent a small contribution for a family there.
The reply of the mayor’s office:
On behalf of the copper city of Stolberg, I would like to thank you very much for your great donation! It is great to see and feel the wave of solidarity that is reaching us, including from you. We are currently still paying out the donations in the form of municipal emergency aid directly to the people affected by the floods. Thank you very much!
Bürgermeisterbüro Kupferstadt Stolberg
We had no idea, that just ten days later all our efforts would be directed to Haiti.