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Social commitment

Social projects that are close to our hearts.

Humanitarian commitment is part of AGILITA’s corporate culture.
Currently we support the social project INKIINO in Ethiopia, which is close to our hearts.

We are sure that with every support a stone is set rolling and we contribute a piece to bear responsibility in other countries and to promote living conditions that do not correspond to our reality.

A bon vivant in Africa -
Term life in Djibouti

Cornelia Frey never felt completely at home in Switzerland. After raising three children, the Bernese emigrated to Ethiopia ten years ago. Today she lives in the developing country of Djibouti – with little money but many ideas.

“The Afar are considered impulsive and dangerous people. I thought to myself that if they became my friends, nothing could happen to me,” says Cornelia Frey. But it was the nomads themselves who were initially afraid of the Swiss woman when she settled on the edge of the Danakil Desert in Ethiopia ten years ago to open a restaurant: “The Afar feared that I would sell alcohol, which is a taboo for them,” says Frey. Therefore, she closed her restaurant in order to use donations to build a hostel for forty children, who also receive schooling there.

When a shooting occurred near the children’s home, killing more than twenty people and injuring fifty others, Cornelia Frey moved on to Djibouti. Although the small East African state is considered safer, it is nevertheless one of the poorest countries in the world. Because the now 59-year-old Swiss woman has already used up her pension fund money, she is in urgent need of an income.

By producing music tracks and fictional films, she believes she can get money. She shoots everyday scenes with local amateur actors and actresses. “In Djibouti, people lie and cheat. With my films I want to hold a mirror up to them,” explains the Bernese. The reportage by Hanspeter Bäni shows an artist in life and survival who does not let her dreams be taken away from her despite many difficulties.

(Source: srf.ch)

INKIINO News of 01 November 2019 by Cornelia Frey from Ayssaita, Ethiopia.

Here is an excerpt from the communication

“Something wonderful happened this summer: My organisation INKIINO is now registered in the commercial register and I am therefore no longer completely alone with all the work. WE HAVE AN OFFICIAL FOUNDATION!
Many thanks to the foundation “Fagus Iucida”, which supported us extremely financially! Thanks to Urs Bähler, our president, and a thousand thanks to Monique and Peter Regenass, who gave me the idea of setting up a foundation in the first place. It was all of you who helped to make this dream come true! I’ve grown very fond of you. Thanks to my sister Daniela Schmid as well as Cornelia Oertle who agreed to represent INKIINO administratively.”

Read more about the development in Ayssaita in the news.

AGILITA continues to support the INKIINO project in Ethiopia in 2018, which has since made a difference with AGILITA’s support.

This is the situation at INKIINO in Ayssaita:

The new shoe year has begun

Since the end of September 2018, the new school year has started in Ayssaita and new children have joined. They are support-worthy kids from far away who would love to learn, people say. No one from the clan has enough money to provide schooling for these children in the city. They don’t learn much in the country – they just herd goats. They grow up and are then married off so that other little children will have the same fate as these children have now. No money for clothes, no money for food…. a life like the goats, that’s the reality there!

INKIINO thanks AGILITA for its support and belief in the project.
Any other donation is also welcome. Please contact AGILITA directly for further information.

These children will enjoy an education together with the other children from the INKIINO home! They will have enough food and if they get sick they will get the care and medication they need. In the mornings they go to the public school, where, however, not much is taught. Therefore, 5 teachers have been hired for the afternoons to teach them in all subjects. The ordinary school is bad and the teachers often shine with absences. The own teachers are motivated and encourage the kids. INKIINO does everything to ensure that the children later complete an apprenticeship or graduate from university and can then support their families.

There are also power outages

Regular power cuts are almost part of everyday life at INKIINO and drain energy. Then there’s no more cold water, no more Coca Cola. Water for washing clothes and cleaning is fetched from the river. Nevertheless, everything still needs to be organized: Meetings with staff and teachers.

What will happen in the next few years?

The INKIINO boarding school will continue as before with about 40 children from the poorest backgrounds. They live, eat, sleep and study at INKIINO. Over the weekend they are driven to their huts to their relatives in the country and at the beginning of the week they are picked up again by INKIINO for INKIINO school.

What will be new in the next few years?

INKIINO wants to accompany and finance school leavers! Students who have achieved sufficient points will be sent to university. INKIINO provides mental and financial support and is responsible for them until they receive their diplomas. Degrees? High school graduates with lower scores will attend college. You can enjoy an education in Ayssaita as an electrician, mechanic, computer expert, etc. INKIINO will pay for their housing and school fees and support them mentally until they have completed their education. During the big summer holidays 15 children (the older ones with grades 6-10) are sent to the higher situated town of Kambolcha. You will be accompanied by a person and attend English school there for 2 months. INKIINO will pay for all costs there as well.

What is INKIINO doing in the hottest region of Ethiopia?

A letter from Cornelia Frey, the initiator of the INKIINO project. Cornelia Frey formerly from Langenthal, has been living in Ethiopia for several years and is committed to helping poor children in Ethiopia.

We have set up a boarding school here in Ayssaita, which means that the children sleep, live, eat and learn with us.
Our children are without exception children from very, very poor families.
Children who would otherwise have to herd goats or haul wood. Most are orphans or half-orphans, but (as befits the Afar) have some connection to a clan, be it from their deceased mother’s sister or from some uncle somewhere. We bring them there on the weekends and pick them all up from there. For this we have a chauffeur who knows exactly where each child belongs. Some also go by horse-drawn carriage because the roads are not always as you are used to. 5 days a week the children live with us in the INKIINO home. Currently there are 39 kids from 1st – 8th grade. They eat, sleep and learn together.

AGILITA supports the INKIINO project in Ethiopia with a donation in 2017.

My current 12 employees take care of the children and cook, clean, wash clothes or teach, split wood and bake bread, etc. (although not all are present every day or have a 100% job). These 12 employees all have different jobs, e.g. a caretaker accompanies them to school and picks them up again, another one splits the wood for cooking, a woman washes all the clothes on 2 days a week, the teachers are employed half-time, since the kids attend public school in the morning. Then we have 2 boardmembers who check everything every day and discuss with the kids, i.e. they are just there for everything and that. 3 women are always there, cooking and taking care of the kids around the clock. We have 2 guards, one during the day and one at night so that everything is always ready when you need it. And believe me, everything gets stolen in this neighborhood. Wheels and mirrors from cars, plastic containers, mattresses, rubber hoses, wood, just about anything. All employees, in turn, have many dependents. Thanks to the wages they received, they can now feed their family. Sometimes people work for us who would otherwise never have found a job. On Saturdays and Sundays we all rest and enjoy the peace and quiet, because the kids are with their clan in the countryside, where they are immediately harnessed to herding goats and fetching water, as is the way here.

We are all excited to see what will happen next! What does the future hold?
Nobody knows. We’ll see.

Best regards and see you soon! Cornelia Frey