Augsburg, 22.06.2023 – Education is the key to a self-determined life and an important factor for lasting peace. This was the joint conclusion at the end of a visit that will resonate. At the invitation of the PATRIZIA Foundation, a delegation led by the Ethiopian Minister of Labour, Muferiat Kamil, visited the city on Wednesday, 21 June 2023. She was accompanied by the Ethiopian Minister of Vocational Education and Training, Dr Teshale Berecha, and representatives of the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW).
At the beginning of their visit, the delegation was welcomed by Mayor Bernd Kränzle in the Prince’s Room of Augsburg City Hall, where the Minister signed the city’s Golden Book. In his address, Kränzle emphasised the importance of Augsburg as a city of peace against the backdrop of years of civil war in Ethiopia, concluding: “Only a pacified country can truly develop and thus gradually generate a little prosperity for all.” Kamil, who was Minister of Peace in Ethiopia during the civil war, replied: “I am sure that we can learn a lot from each other in cooperation and work towards a future that is sustainably just and fair.” The development of a sustainable education infrastructure is of great importance, the Minister continued on the occasion of the visit and signalled the special interest of her delegation in the dual education system in Germany and the activities of the PATRIZIA Foundation in the field of vocational training.
A joint project?
Constanze Egger, member of the PATRIZIA Foundation’s Managing Board, commented in her welcoming speech at City Hall: “We feel very honoured in view of the interest in our foundation’s work. Since we always realise our sustainable education projects with a guaranteed term of 25 years, close, reliable cooperation with partners who share this ambitious goal is of immeasurable value. Especially in the area of vocational schools, it is enormously important that a contemporary curriculum optimally prepares students for the very complex demands of the modern working world.”
After the reception in the town hall, the delegation met in the premises of the PATRIZIA Foundation in Fuggerstraße – for an exchange about a possible joint project in the vocational training sector, the so-called “Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) System” of the East African country. A brief introduction to PATRIZIA was also on the agenda. Foundation founder and PATRIZA CEO Wolfgang Egger emphasised in his welcoming message: “The PATRIZIA Foundation brings 25 years of experience in successfully building educational infrastructure for children and youth who would otherwise not have access to education to future cooperation projects. It is an excellent and reliable partner for public and private institutions that share our conviction that quality education is crucial for a self-determined and better future.
500 years of social infrastructure
The visit ended with a detour to the Fuggerei – a prime example of a social infrastructure that has existed for over 500 years. And a concept that corresponds in an exemplary way to the PATRIZIA Foundation’s sustainable educational claim. In the end, visitors and the Foundation team agreed: the first stage of the talks was a complete success. Astrid Gabler, Managing Director of the PATRIZIA Foundation, sums up: “Without education, there is no social advancement, no basis for lasting peace. Neither in Ethiopia nor anywhere else in the world. We are very pleased to be able to make an important contribution here.”
The visit of the delegation led by Minister of Labour Muferiat Kamil to Augsburg is a return visit. At the end of May, Astrid Gabler, Managing Director of the PATRIZIA Foundation, already had the opportunity to get an impression of the situation of vocational schools in Ethiopia. The biggest problem on the ground is that in many places the digital infrastructure and technical equipment in the schools is either non-existent or remains unused. As a result, the curriculum can only be implemented in a very incomplete manner, so that students are not optimally prepared for working life.
