Our team
Peter Emorinken-Donatus
Peter Emorinken-Donatus is the originator, co-initiator and co-leader of this project ‘South-North Bridges Africa’. He is also the host of the transformation workshop. Peter Emorinken-Donatus is, among other things, a freelance journalist, educational consultant and long-standing environmental and human rights activist. The 57-year-old winner of the taz Panter Prize 2022 (jury) was born in Nigeria. He is also known as an avowed opponent of the Shell company and is considered one of the best-known voices from the Global South for environmental/climate justice in Germany, where he has lived for over 30 years. Emorinken-Donatus is the initiator, co-founder and spokesperson of the movement ‘Bündnis Ökozidgesetz’, which was founded with the aim of criminalising ecocide. Together with a number of experts from the Global South living in Germany, he founded a BIPoC think tank: ‘Care & Repair – Decolonial Think-Tank For Environmental Justice’.
Emorinken-Donatus has been on the supervisory board of Greenpeace Germany since 1 June this year.
Back in 1997, he received an award from Business Crime Control for his civil courage and commitment against white-collar crime. He is currently continuing his research on the topic of flight and displacement in connection with the environment, ecocides and the climate catastrophe.
Paula Cäcilie Hummelheim
Paula Cäcilie Hummelsheim is co-initiator and co-leader of the project “South-North Bridges Africa”. She is an activist for climate and global justice & a student of the interdisciplinary Bachelor’s programme “Philosophy, Politics and Economics” at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Paula C. Hummelsheim maintains close contacts to Ghana, where she has lived for a time. She is particularly interested in the political and economic conditions in (West) Africa, South-North relations, Pan-Africanism and grassroots political movements. She is currently doing voluntary political work for the Düsseldorf chapter of Fridays for Future, focussing on the interests and perspectives of the Global South.
Maja Nora Schober
Maja Schober is a political scientist and environmental activist. She has been involved in the areas of migration and environmental protection since her school days. At the beginning of her studies, she was active with Greenpeace and Amnesty International, which made climate protection and human rights issues close to her heart. She also helps organize the Solarcamp Freiburg, which aims to counteract the shortage of skilled workers in climate-related trades, and runs work camps for IBG e. V., which combines work in nature conservation and international encounters. During her studies at Legon University in Ghana, she got to know Paula and became more involved with the topics of pan-Africanism and economic links between Europe and West Africa.
Anke Konietzny
Anke Konietzny has been a member of the human rights organisation Society for Threatened Peoples for around forty years.
She is particularly concerned about indigenous peoples around the world.
They have been struggling for centuries to survive collectively on their ancestral land and in an intact environment.
Her interest in the indigenous peoples’ struggle and advocacy for climate justice led her to the Rhenish lignite mining region.
She has campaigned against the destruction of churches, villages, fields and forests by open-cast mining in the Christian initiative “Die Kirche(n) im Dorf lassen”.
As a member of the Düsseldorf Climate List, she has represented the PARTEI Climate Group in the Small Commission for Sustainable Development since 2020.
Eli Abeke (Dipl.-Ing.)
The self-employed architect from Cologne was born in Sapele in the Niger Delta (Nigeria) and has lived in Germany for more than four decades. Eli Abeke is Chairman of the Board of the organisation Bündnis14 Afrika e.V. and has also been a long-standing activist in the fields of anti-racism, colonialism (reappraisal, reparation/restitution), integration, inclusion and politics. As a speaker / educational consultant at various panels, workshops, seminars, events and school projects throughout Germany and in other European countries, he works tirelessly for the education, reappraisal and recognition of the German / European colonial heritage.
Eli Abeke is a founding member of the Cologne electoral list Bündnis14 Afrika (Integration Council election). Eli Abeke is also an assessor on the board of the SPD sub-district of Cologne and a synodal representative for cooperation between German Protestant congregations and congregations of other languages and origins at the district synod of the Evangelical Church District of Cologne-Mitte.
Susanne Gelf
Susanne Gelf has been active in the climate justice movement since 2019, including Extinction Rebellion, Scientist Rebellion, the Red Rebels and the Last Generation. In events and actions, she is particularly committed to the visibility of climate injustice and the biodiversity crisis. Her work also focuses on climate education and the formulation and implementation of the demand for climate justice in the movement in connection with self-imposed reparation payments.
Fungai Machingaifa
Fungai is a Zambian-Zimbabwean international student studying “Environment and Energy” at the Hochschule Rhein-Waal. Fungai is particularly interested in scientific solutions to the climate crisis, solar and energy technology, decolonization and global justice. Fungai wants to support the black movement with his time and energy.
Pia Monz
Pia Monz works as a volunteer in political life at the One World Forum Düsseldorf. There she focusses on sustainability, global justice and youth education. She is particularly interested in climate protection and intersectional, feminist perspectives.
Our supporting initiatives
Bündnis 14 Afrika
Bündnis14 Afrika has been part of the Integration Council of the City of Cologne with a mandate since 2014. Migrants and BIPoC, especially people of African origin, organize themselves here.
They position themselves in the Integration Council and thus indirectly in the Cologne City Council on socio-political issues and implement activities for political participation.
Click here to go to the website of Bündnis14 Afrika.
Fridays for Future Düsseldorf
At Fridays for Future Düsseldorf, young people join forces with people all over the world to campaign for climate justice and for an effective and fair climate policy. To this end, they organize actions, strikes and educational events.
Fridays For Future Düsseldorf is part of the Fridays For Future movement, which is international, non-partisan, autonomous and decentralized.
Click here to go to the Instagram page of Fridays for Future Düsseldorf.
Eine Welt Forum Düsseldorf
The One World Forum Düsseldorf is THE network for local One World work. They network, support and inform about important developments and the activities of the various initiatives in Düsseldorf.
Because successful development cooperation begins in your own city – through participation in political committees, high-profile events, well-founded information and educational work for citizens and, of course, through networking. This is what they are committed to.
Click here to go to the website of Eine Welt Forum Düsseldorf.
Our partner organizati0ns
Düsseldorf regional group of the Society for Threatened Peoples
In the Düsseldorf regional group of the Society for Threatened Peoples, volunteers are committed to the human rights of ethnic or religious minorities around the world. The focus is on the interface between indigenous peoples and climate and environmental issues. The GfbV RG Düsseldorf organises lectures and vigils and is approachable for members of threatened or persecuted communities.
Click here to go to the website of the Society for Threatened Peoples Düsseldorf.
Students for Future Düsseldorf
SFF Düsseldorf is a group of students from various colleges and universities in Düsseldorf who, together with people all over the world, are campaigning for an effective and just climate policy. Students For Future is part of the Fridays For Future movement, which is international, non-partisan, autonomous and decentralised. Above all, they want to bring the climate justice movement to students. To this end, they organise campaigns, educational events and strikes.
Click here to go to the website of Students for Future Düsseldorf.
Ghana Food Movement
The Ghana Food Movement (GFM) works to create a resilient and equitable local food system. GFM, a non-profit network of farmers, food entrepreneurs, chefs, academics, and food bloggers, is dedicated to fostering sustainable agricultural practices, enhancing the food industry, and building youth capacity.
At the heart of the current initiatives is “The Kitchen,” a food education hub in Accra. This upcoming center aims to be a gathering place for Ghana’s food community, where GFM will train young Ghanaians in skills ranging from product development and hospitality to chef training, all with a focus on local ingredients and sustainable farming practices. An important effort to reclaim our food system. From farm to table.
Click here to go to the website of Ghana Food Movement.
PAWLO-Masoso e.V.
PAWLO-Masoso e.V. is a pan-African women’s organisation based in Potsdam. The ‘Pan-African Women’s Liberation Organisation’ was founded in 1994 during the 7th Pan-African Congress in Kampala, Uganda. As an organisation, PAWLO is active nationwide and in several other countries worldwide.
The aim of the VIW-Vitamin P-PAWLO-Palanca project is to support children, adolescents and young adults to ensure they have a successful time at school,
a successful entry into working life, successful training or studies and/or to help them with career guidance,
support them in coping with a wide range of everyday situations and/or in organising their leisure time.
Click here to go to the website of PAWLO-Masoso e.V.
Eme ReCulture
Eme-Ora is an indigenous community in the north of the oil-rich and ecologically devastated Niger Delta in Nigeria. However, the community is one of the few areas of the Niger Delta that has remained largely unspoilt by direct oil and gas extraction – no one knows how long it will stay that way!
When Eme-Ora Community speaks of land as their life and culture, they express their concern about the increasing degradation of their environment, the growing threat of loss of their habitat and way of life, including biodiversity, livelihoods and language. The community thus demonstrates the deep connection between humans and nature as the supreme component of their existence, knowledge and worldview.
Eme-Ora have vast fertile lands, so they are traditionally known as farmers and hunters, far beyond subsistence farming. In recent decades, however, this community, like all other neighbouring communities, has experienced an unprecedented rapid extinction of forests, biodiversity and sustainability-oriented indigenous knowledge, good practices and way of life. In addition to colonial legacies and colonial continuities, the reasons for this are: massive deforestation and monoculture, land grabbing, reckless use of pesticides, herbicides and GMO seeds (genetically modified seeds / plants), large-scale emigration (domestic and foreign), brain-washing and, above all, the current climate catastrophe, to name but a few. In order to stop this ecocidal trend and start a process of renaturalisation and restoration of the traditional sustainable way of life and culture, indigenous people from the Eme-Ora community founded the collective (cooperative) ‘EmeReCulture’ about a year ago.
BUNDjugend NRW
BUNDjugend is the independent youth organisation in the Bund für
Umwelt- und Naturschutz Deutschland e.V. for young people up to the age of 27. With diverse, interactive campaigns and projects on topics such as nutrition, consumption, climate and energy, we campaign for environmental protection, point out alternatives and stimulate thought processes.
As part of the project ‘You. Me. We. International biographies in the youth organisation’, BUNDjugend NRW has been offering various educational events on the topics of anti-discrimination, post-colonialism, empowerment and criticism of racism for several years, actively involving young people with diverse backgrounds and positions in the organisation.
Click here to go to the website of BUNDjugend NRW.
BIPoC Unit of the Hochschule Düsseldorf.
The task of the BIPoC Unit is to represent the political interests of and support Brown, Black, Indigenous, Roma & Sintezza, non-white PoC. It should provide the opportunity to share challenges regarding experiences of discrimination with other BIPoC, to empower each other and to network with others. We also want to support and initiate projects that are directed against open and structural racism and discrimination at the university, but also in society.
Click here for the Instagram page of the BIPoC Referat.
Click here to go to the website of the AStA of Hochschule Düsseldorf.
Jappoo e.V.: A bridge for the Senegalese in NRW
Jappoo e.V. is an association that brings together Senegalese people in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Founded in Düsseldorf in 1999, the organisation is now based in Wuppertal. With its commitment and diversity, Jappoo e.V. pursues six main objectives: Education, Human Rights, Integration, Living Together, Culture and Diversity, Environment.
Thanks to its many years of experience in these important areas, Jappoo e.V. offers a broader perspective for cooperation and dynamic realisation of common goals.
Since 2020, the organisation has been headed by Cheikh Djibril Kane, who continues to lead Jappoo e.V. in new directions.
Click here for the Facebook page of Jappoo e.V. NRW.