By the sweat of their brow

Lufthansa Group employees lend a helping hand in Cairo and New York

The global helpfulness of Lufthansa Group employees is something extraordinary. On a voluntary basis – and in their spare time, too – they work on behalf of disadvantaged people. Their commitment is united under the umbrella of help alliance, regardless of whether it is currently a matter of one of the more than 30 aid projects that provide access to education, especially for children and adolescents, thus offering them hope for the future or a form of personal engagement that is more selective and local.

Such as in Egypt, for instance, where the CAI GP team helped disadvantaged people in the poorest areas of the mega-metropolis that is Cairo during Ramadan. For an entire night, Lufthansa Group employees packed 1,500 boxes, each containing 27 kilograms of food such as rice, pasta, sugar, tea, ghee and cooking oil, for poor families – and at a temperature of more than 30 degrees Celsius, too! They gladly put up with the hardships because, after all, this campaign was in aid of people in Need. The parcels were then handed over to the non-profit organization “Restoring Hope”, which was founded by Ingy El Katan, a local Lufthansa employee, and her husband.

“The commitment of our Lufthansa Group team impressed me a lot. Every colleague was immediately inspired by the idea and wanted to take part and help out. As if a hot summer night with hard physical work were the most natural thing in the world,” says Frank Van den Steen, CAI GP. The high level of commitment and the positive effects on the team spirit made them want to do more of the same.

Big help in Big Apple

And in New York, too, colleagues did voluntary work under the motto of ‘minds take flight’. Thirty volunteers went to the Edward Bush School in Brooklyn, P.S. 18, a public elementary school with students of various socio-economic backgrounds, 90 percent of whom receive free or reduced-price lunches. In 2017, the school became the home of the so-called “trilingual project”, which is supported by the Deutsches Sprachprogramm (“German Language Program”), a volunteer organization that offers bilingual education in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. The aim is to build bridges, break down stereotypes and foster a positive attitude in the children toward an international community.

The staff talked with the students, made planes with the children and worked with older students on tasks related to the topic of flying. They played basketball and football in the breaks. Together, at the entrance to the school, they created an inspirational mural, one that depicts a child’s journey from elementary school to college, in line with the motto of ‘Start here, go anywhere’. “It was wonderful to see how interested and open-minded the students were. The children asked countless questions about Lufthansa, aircraft and Germany,” says Annette Lienemann, NYC HX/W.

The campaign was the start of a, hopefully, long-term partnership to help the school on its way.