ASB, as a founding member of the "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" alliance, will celebrate 20 years of coordinated humanitarian aid this year.

For two decades, this alliance of German humanitarian organizations has been working together to provide emergency and disaster relief. During this time, with the support of the alliance, 2,400 projects have been carried out in 130 countries around the world and have been able to help several thousands of people who have difficulties with access to drinking water, food and medical care.

The success story of the alliance began on March 6, 2001: Manuela Roßbach, then managing director of CARE Germany, Heribert Röhrig of Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB) and Bert Hinterkeuser of Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) decided to combine the organizations' long-standing experience in humanitarian aid as well as their strengths into a single alliance. They founded "Aktion Deutschland Hilft" as a strong alliance of German relief organizations. 

The alliance's first mission was in the context of the Elbe flooding, bearing in mind that Aktion Deutschland Hilft is only active in Germany in exceptional cases, as was the case this year with the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID19). Manuela Roßbach is now managing director of Aktion Deutschland Hilft and recalls the founding of the organization: "Our idea was to strengthen cooperation in the event of future disasters."

From the ASB Latin America Regional Office, we join the celebration with pleasure and continue to reinforce our commitment to act immediately in the field of humanitarian aid hand in hand with all the German organizations that are now part of the alliance "Aktion Deutschland Hilft".