Interviews: Back from Development Service

Motivation for, experiences in and influence of Development Service

As part of the AGdD study 2022 "Before and after development service: A quantitative study among returnees (2011-2020) and for the publication "Die Welt im Gepäck", in-depth interviews were conducted with some study participants. They talked about their experiences, motivations for a development service and its influence until today - e.g. in the form of social engagement after their return.

“My stays in Africa during the development service are the phases of my life that are incredibly important to me.”

Annette Ballhorn is a gynecologist. She carried out two development service assignments. From 2011 to 2013, she was in Ethiopia with her husband and their two children.

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Return from Peru

Anamaria Silva-Saavedra was from 2007 to 2014 as a peace consultant in Peru. Her return was rather difficult, but she returned with valuable skills.

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Conflict Transformation and Peacekeeping in Columbia

Lisa Picott was for AGIAMONDO in Columbia as part of the Civil Peace Service. She was involved in project coordination in the areas of planning, monitoring and evaluation.

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For Coworkers – Cfi in Jordan: Working with refugees

“I learned Arabic and at the same time I learned to listen in a different way.” Right after his return. Reiner Haus was able to use this experience while working at a school for children with special needs.

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“Our biggest impulse was the fear of narrow-mindedness”

Dariush Ghobad, his wife and their two children were in Cambodia, where he worked as a fundraiser. The “fear of narrow-mindedness” was the biggest impulse to complete a development service assignment for him and his wife.

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©Barbara Flesch

Experiences in the Civil peace service

For me, it was a very rich and valuable time overall," Chris Hartmann said about his development service in Naples. After his return, he started working for terre des homme in Osnabrück.

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“The work in West Africa was and still is very defining for me.”

Among other things, Arndt Brodkorb spend some time in Guinea as a specialist for the World Peace Service. As a result of his time in Africa, his social engagement has changed permanently.

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