On 16.01.2001 I attended an event in Cologne at Neumarkt. Alexandra Huck had just returned from Colombia, where she worked in a Peace Brigades International (www.pbideutschland.de) team. She gave a lecture about this work that evening. PBI accompanies local human rights activists (female and male) and thus gives them greater scope for their commitment to human rights.I was immediately enthusiastic about this method of non-violently advocating for the observance of human rights.

However, it took until 31.12.2002 for me to become active in PBI. On that day, I went to Darmstadt and visited Matthias Richter to found the Public Relations Working Group. Already in January 2003 my first national meeting took place in Fredelsloh. 10 people took part.
Here I learned that it is actually possible to reach a consensus, even if there are initially completely opposing opinions on a topic.

In March 2003, together with Heidi, Patrick and a few other people, I founded the PBI regional group in Cologne. We have arranged regular monthly meetings from the beginning. After a short finding phase, we organized our first weekend seminar in the same year, where we presented the work of PBI to interested parties. I admit that I am quite proud of what the Cologne regional group has achieved so far (2024). For two years now, we have been weakening a bit and can hardly get a meeting in the Allerweltshaus in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, but we are working to make it change again.

In 2006, I started working in the co-group of PBI Germany and continue to do so today. The co-group is intended to be a link between full-time and volunteers.Currently, we are four people who work very closely with the office in Hamburg. I’m responsible for finances, I’m in constant contact with the people in the office who do some kind of work relevant to the budget. Since we are only a small group, the four of us are actually responsible for everything that comes up. Most of the work is done by HR issues.

The many years of work at PBI Germany have shaped my character. I work with people who are usually much younger than me. This also means that discussions on topics that were actually closed are repeated because new people have come in again who have to be picked up. This is often exhausting and requires a lot of patience.Fortunately, I have always been a pretty quiet type, but I have been able to improve this quality significantly over the years, as well as my patience in discussions.My impression is that this work contributes significantly to the fact that I feel younger than I actually am today.