Stadtoasen e.V. organized in 2005 the Oecher South African Summer to celebrate the 5th birthday of the Aachen-Cape Town partnership.
During that celebration Stadtoasen e.V. invited the South African Popband Freshlyground forrt hte first time to Germany. The band could be won for a benefit performance for the upcoming Bauwagen-goes-South-project during their tour throughout Europe. The concert took place at Brueckenkopfpark in Juelich (25 kms from Aachen) at the 9th of August. Although it rained cats and dogs (80 litres per square meter) the band played an impressive concert for the 250 visitors. Unfortunately Stadtoasen e.V. couldn´t earn money for the project from the concert because of the small amount of spectators.
At the beginning of the year 2007 there was a change with the project manager of SEED. Glen Tyler came to Germany to work here and Talfryn Harris took over in South Africa. When he started his new job he didn´t know the partnership and the special way of working in the project “Bauwagen goes South”. Therefore Stadtoasen e.V. decided to invite him to Aachen, so that he could learn more about the typical Bauwagen-projects in Germany.
Talfryn visited Aachen for two weeks in October 2007. He worked actively together with the Stadtoasen-Team at the renewal of a schoolyard at the Goethe-School (a secondary school) in a small town 20 kms from Aachen called Baesweiler. In this project the two selected volunteers – Melina Frese and Sina Reichenbach – were also busy working with the Stadtoasen-Team. The learners have been asked about their wishes for the renewal of the schoolyard, a concept-plan has been designed together and during a project-week in October all together (150 kids, some of the teachers, some parents, the Stadtoasen-Team and some other professional workers put the plan into reality! (see the project at: www.schulenbauenpartnerschaften.eu)
During his stay Talfryn also prepared the two volunteers for the work in Cape Town. They also searched for a school for the new 2008-project. Because of the problems with the maintainance of the K1-Special-School after the finish of the last project (K1 is not in one of the regular SEED-programs) the team was looking for a “Seed-School”. They selected the “Fairview primary School” at Grassy Park, which was part of the Seed-Program since 3 years.
Another preparation for the volunteers was a project-week at a primary school in Aachen, where they created a foot-texture-path, similar to the path which is planned at Fairview primary school.
In November the project manager from Stadtoasen, Norbert Kuntz, visited Cape Town to talk with all stakeholders in the project. SEED made a constructional drawing of the existing school garden and prepared a contract between all joining members of the project (SEED, Stadtoasen e.V., Fairview Primary School, and LOFOB) which has been signed. The landscape architects of Stadtoasen e.V. created a conceptual design for the scented trail and the outdoor-classroom which were the most wanted project-items at Fairview primary.
After Sina Reichenbach left the project because of private reasons, Inka Mertes joined Stadtoasen e.V. and the project as a new volunteer in December 2007. For fundraising purposes the two volunteers created a new flyer about the project and started to collect donations from local companies in Aachen, government agencies and private individuals. (see: support)
