Buy, Win, Help

Read how former and current trainees of the Lufthansa Group get involved with help alliance every year and how Sandra from the Obizi project in Nigeria supports this involvement

The idea is simple: buy an Advent calendar, hang it up and open a little door every day during Advent. If the winning number on the door matches the calendar number on the back, you have won. The proceeds from the calendar sale support help alliance projects. Last year, the Obizi project in southwest Nigeria was supported with more than 14,000 euros. The idea of the then Start Cargo Trainees was born 3 years ago with a mulled wine at the Christmas market: “At the market there was the opportunity to buy and win Advent calendars at the Lions Club. We asked ourselves why such a thing doesn’t actually exist within Lufthansa. The idea was born and implemented quite successfully in its first year,” says Jan Wegner, who is now responsible for the worldwide engine special tools at Mobile Engine Services at Lufthansa Technik and was then a trainee at Lufthansa Cargo. The prizes for the calendar are made available to Lufthansa Group-wide by departments. From suitcases and flight vouchers to cheese knives, the prizes are a colourful mix.

Positive reactions to commitment

“With the help alliance, there is the possibility of directly supporting projects and being sure that the entire amount will also benefit the project – because the administrative structure of the organization is borne by the Lufthansa Group. There is also the attraction of using the potential of the enormous number of employees in the Lufthansa Group for this purpose. After the first edition, the feedback was so positive that it’s simply fun to get together for the Advent calendar and collect a huge sum of money with relatively little effort and over a short period of time thanks to the willingness of colleagues to donate,” says Sebastian Blech. In order to be able to pass on the donations even better and to be on the safe side legally, the “Trainee Adventskalender Spendenverein” was founded, which is currently managed by Sebastian Blech and Manuel Postbiegel. The feedback from colleagues was consistently positive, the calendar is sold through all Lufthansa Group companies: “This year, in addition to many colleagues from Lufthansa Passage, Cargo and Technik, there were also many orders from Eurowings, AirPlus or Miles and More. There were also orders from abroad,” says Manuel Postbiegel. This coming winter, the calendar will enter its fifth season: “We are looking forward to starting the campaign again and would like to take this opportunity to thank all our donors and sponsors,” says Sebastian Blech.

Support for Sandra from Obizi

Each year a different help alliance project is supported. It was the Obizi project in Nigeria’s turn in 2018. The Obizi People Health Medical Center in Nigeria was founded in 1999 and provides health care for the inhabitants of Obizi. Project manager is Arnd Klinge, flight captain at Lufthansa in Frankfurt and founding member of the help alliance. The aid organization was able to finance a substantial part of the expansion of the Health Center. More than 1,000 patients are treated in the OPMC every month. Meanwhile, schools in the vicinity of the hospital are also being renovated in order to provide help in education as well as health care. The region in which Obizi is located is still known to many as the civil war region of Biafra. To this day, the region has not been able to fully recover from the damage caused by the war of independence. The hospital in Obizi also trains nursing staff. Sandra, for example, has successfully completed her training as a nurse at the OPMC.

A role model for others

Today 20 year old Nnamocha Sandra Oluomachi, her full name, started her training in January 2016. She has always had a great interest in health and medicine, she says. Many people from the surrounding villages came to her graduation ceremony on 28 December last year. “They were all so proud of me, it overwhelmed me,” says Sandra proudly. “My family and I are very grateful for the opportunity that I got here and that would not have been possible without the support of help alliance,” Sandra continued. “One of my favourite moments in training was when I was on a mission in the operating theatre and the other staff were amazed when they found out that I was still in training,” Sandra said happily. With the equipment from her training at hand, she can now tackle the next stations in her career and continue to be a role model for everyone else in the hospital.

Here you can find out more about the project in Nigeria.