Our history.

In Africa, the poorest communities face hardship, suffering, illness and a lack of education. Millions live below the extreme poverty line — without clean drinking water, without medical care, without the access to education that could write the next chapter of their lives.

This reality is not abstract. It has names, faces, voices. It is the mother holding her sick child and not knowing where the next doctor is. It is the eight-year-old girl who walks four kilometres each morning for a bucket of water. It is the father who knows his daughter is bright — but doesn't have the money to send her to school.

It is these dramatic facts and their tragic consequences for those affected and their descendants that wouldn't let us go. That kept us awake. That made us act.

That's how Initiative Africa Solidarity Germany was founded in 2006 in Darmstadt — by a group of young engineers, some with African roots and all familiar with the realities on the ground, who refused to remain powerless.

What began as a small, voluntary project has grown over almost two decades into an initiative that helps build schools, secures medical care, brings clean drinking water and arranges sponsorships in several African countries — always guided by the same principle: help towards self-help, carried by people on the ground, accompanied by us.