Partnership development cooperation-

The association VAMOS! e.V.

From the work of the initiative VAMOS! encounters with people in support groups are emerging. Additionally, relationships with members of a homeless initiative, with women of a prostitute group, with grassroots communities and small-farming families in northeastern Brazil are growing. What they all have in common is that they, as those affected, become actors and take their destiny into their own hands. The desire arose to also strengthen such groups in a financial way. Therefore, at the end of 1996, the association VAMOS! was founded, which pursues charitable purposes exclusively and is recognized as such by the Tax Office and the District Court of Dortmund.

Fourty members of VAMOS!, together with many sympathizers, guarantee financial support for development projects. Special care is taken to the question: How do we avoid creating new dependencies through our help and instead strengthen the personal responsibility of those affected? While there is no such thing as 100% certainty, some criteria have proven helpful in mitigating this danger. For example, great emphasis is placed on the fact that project managers and those affected personally know each other. In addition, care is taken to ensure that decisions on the use of funds are taken democratically and that the evaluation of project work is also carried out with the participation of as many as possible.

VAMOS owes a special dimension of development cooperation to the fact that one of its founding members lived and worked as a professional, together with his Brazilian wife, in Bacabal, north-east Brazil, from 1996 to April 2009. This, together with grassroots groups and communities where affected organize themselves, in order to improve their situation together, helped VAMOS a lot. Its commitment is mediated by the Development Assistance Working Group (AGEH) and by ADVENIAT, the Archdiocese of Paderborn and VAMOS! .