Who we are
An association introduces itself
The CHRISTLICHE HILFSWERK FÜR AFRIKA E.V. (CHA)
has been foundet in January 1997.
Among its initiators, who were all active in church matters, was the Ghanaian Pastor Alfred Osei-Poku.
CHA does development aid in different countries of Africa or supports projects of other organisations.
We have been officially approved as tax-previleged and particularly eligible.
We act out of Christian motivation and get support from different churches without being as association
bound to any denomination.
We started in Ghana, where we first founded our African partner organisation "Christian Helpwork for
Africa Ass.", through which we act on site.
Later, projects in other countries followed: Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa.
To allow in our name for a new project in India, from 2006 on we called ourselves
"Christliches Hilfswerk Auslandshilfe", until in 2012 we restricted ourselves to our original area of
interest: Africa.
Our working team
Each individual contributes to our success as a team and our joint achievement of our goals – across all locations and national borders.
Alfred Osei-Poku
Initiator
Once serving for the United Nations, he was sent to Lebanon and Israel. From the beginning of his pastoral service in Hamburg on, which was in the early 1990s, he sent relief goods into his home country Ghana multiple times. In 1997, he had the idea of founding an association. Today, Pastor Alfred acts as the "International Coordinator" of CHA mainly in Ghana, where he controls the development of our school "Elim Academy" , prepares the establishment of the association's hospital and carries out the distribution of the relief goods sent annually.
Jan Pahl
Administration
One of the founder members of the association and works as a Technical Writer for a company in Hamburg. From the beginning on, he took over the responsibility for administration. In the second place, he got involved with different tasks as a parish assistant at "Internationale Missionsgemeinde" in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg.
Werner Hestermann
Executive board
Facility manager for the German armed forces and in the BOD of the association for many years. His area are the practical works in the association and furthermore the assistance in book-keeping.
Harald Niedergesäss
Executive board
By profession consultant and trader in matters of finances, is the North-German chairman of the baptist church association BEfG and church leader of "Bunte Kirche" in Hamburg-Harburg. He could bring in much experience and valuable contacts when he joined the BOD of CHA in 2017 as successor of Dirk Aldag.
Hans-Hermann und Olga Holst
Project leadership
The contact persons for our "Southafrica project" . They are in close contact with Holger Lorenz, who runs there the orphanage for AIDS suffering children. Hans-Hermann has many years of experience in the BOD of an international relief organisation and serves for CHA as annual accounts auditor. Olga is a teacher and interpreter, she has e.g. translated the Ghanaian minister for social welfare at her visit at Hamburg in 2003.
