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Devoted to Africa:
Pilot Fokko Doyen doesn’t talk – he acts!
A boy grows up on a remote farm, goes to sea, becomes a pilot and flies around the world. Fleet manager Fokko Doyen builds his own story. It takes us to Africa, has to do with travel and the wonderful things that seeing the world can achieve.
It’s a 500-kilometre drive through Equatorial Africa from Nairobi, past camel drivers and herds of goats. Solitary acacias stand like exploded umbrellas in the savanna near Samburu.
The mzungu, the white man from East Frisia, has travelled this route more than a dozen times. Into the heart of rural Africa, past Mount Kenya and toward Ethiopia, where the vegetation becomes sparse and the sun is so hot it hurts.
Two years of extreme drought killed 1.5 million cattle and goats. Hundreds of giraffes and elephants died in the bush. The sun dried out the watering holes, scorched the grasslands and turned the earth to dust. The drought was repeatedly declared a national disaster.
This is Africa. No Robert Redford flies his double-decker over billowing grassland here. There’s just blazing heat.
Families share a single hut, parents and children together. Six people sleep in the same bed – a wooden frame that rocks them to sleep in the dark nights.
Doyen is greeted by two women who know him, the tall mzungu from Germany. He asks after the boy who was ill on his last visit, asks after the girl with a stomach ache. The nearest doctor is miles away. Perhaps Doyen can do something, speak with the bishop. Things move slowly in Africa. But this isn’t why Doyen has come to faraway Marsabit. It’s about building livelihoods, creating perspectives, at least for some of the people here. The children in particular. It’s about water, food, education.
That’s why he’s here. To help, to do something.
Families share a single hut, parents and children together. Six people sleep in the same bed – a wooden frame that rocks them to sleep in the dark nights.
Doyen is greeted by two women who know him, the tall mzungu from Germany. He asks after the boy who was ill on his last visit, asks after the girl with a stomach ache. The nearest doctor is miles away. Perhaps Doyen can do something, speak with the bishop. Things move slowly in Africa. But this isn’t why Doyen has come to faraway Marsabit. It’s about building livelihoods, creating perspectives, at least for some of the people here. The children in particular. It’s about water, food, education.
That’s why he’s here. To help, to do something.
It all began in Nairobi. On one of his many cargo flights to Kenya, he happened to visit the Mothers’ Mercy Home – an orphanage – in Kianjogu district.
What he saw was despair. Traumatised children sitting on the bare floor. Girls and boys with no food, and no hope. Doyen recalls: ‘The need was enormous. None of the big organisations were represented here, none of them were helping.’ He didn’t hesitate for long.
With the help of a large German newspaper, he started a fundraising campaign, which set the ball rolling in 2007. Doyen established Cargo Human Care. Since Lufthansa supported the project from day one, he was able to fly clothing and medical supplies to Nairobi. In the end, the donations were enough for a new building on the orphanage premises – a proper brick home for 120 children, who now received regular meals and schooling, and were looked after by social workers.
For many, it was an anchor in nothingness.
And so it continued. Fokko Doyen, the many helpers, doctors and other members of Cargo Human Care have developed and maintain seven aid projects in Kenya – in Nairobi and the rural north. They travel to Africa repeatedly, tangle with the bureaucracy, give talks in Germany and raise donations.
Fokko Doyen: ‘There’s no emotionalism involved here, what we’re doing is moving aspects of daily life in Africa forward.’
Today, Cargo Human Care boasts 750 members and 40 volunteer medical specialists, and has arranged more than 300 sponsorships. This way, the organisation not only secures the survival of hundreds of children but is able to offer them a life with prospects.
In 2009, Cargo Human Care opened the Medical Centre in Nairobi. More than 40,000 patients are treated here each year, people who are unable to afford a doctor or even unable to say what is wrong with them. Kenya lacks medicine, medical care and medical guidance.
Doyen was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his work. Perhaps the distinction was ultimately for understanding the difference between talk and action. Doyen: ‘There’s no emotionalism involved here, what we’re doing is moving aspects of daily life in Africa forward.’
On this trip, Doyen also visits the Wings Academy in Marsabit. Classrooms, a teacher’s office and shelves for pencils and maths books have gone up in the middle of the desert. Here, not far from clay huts, are annexes containing beds with mattresses; there are showers, sinks and a small kitchen.
The academy is something of a new home for the 276 children that are currently enrolled. No more hunger pains, no more working in the fields. The girls and boys have a chance to learn, are able to wash. Many children first have to come to terms with such bliss.
The Wings Academy was also established by Cargo Human Care. There’s a dining room, a separate building for the kitchen. Several water tanks were installed to catch rainwater in the rare instances that it falls. No water, no life. No life, no possibility to learn. In Africa, correlations between things are often quite straightforward. The fence, for instance, that went up around the school. It was needed to keep the elephants at bay. Smelling the water at night, they would otherwise trample everything to reach it.
Doyen climbs into the car and drives north to Bubisa, where the world feels like a hotplate beneath the sun. A cry for help came from the region in the summer of 2020 when the water supply system fully collapsed. Cargo Human Care joined forces with Caritas International to dig for water. They built a water treatment plant and installed ‘water kiosks’ from which to fetch water. For many people, it’s their only chance to this day.
The Wings Academy was also established by Cargo Human Care. There’s a dining room, a separate building for the kitchen. Several water tanks were installed to catch rainwater in the rare instances that it falls. No water, no life. No life, no possibility to learn. In Africa, correlations between things are often quite straightforward. The fence, for instance, that went up around the school. It was needed to keep the elephants at bay. Smelling the water at night, they would otherwise trample everything to reach it.
Doyen climbs into the car and drives north to Bubisa, where the world feels like a hotplate beneath the sun. A cry for help came from the region in the summer of 2020 when the water supply system fully collapsed. Cargo Human Care joined forces with Caritas International to dig for water. They built a water treatment plant and installed ‘water kiosks’ from which to fetch water. For many people, it’s their only chance to this day.
Back in Nairobi, Doyen visits some of the other points of contact that his organisation has set up. For the flying helpers, the Mothers’ Mercy Home is still closest to their hearts. It now has social workers on its payroll, and many mothers work as volunteers, helping to cook, helping with homework. There are beds, showers, and running water. There’s food, there’s clothing, there are books. Footballs made of leather, rather than rags.
The home provides what a young person needs. A roof over their head. The basics in a life that would otherwise be dominated by hunger and misery.
A drive through dusty Nairobi, past building sites, shacks and scintillating street markets. Doyen arrives at the John Kaheni Residence, which was also established by Cargo Human Care. Teenagers living here carry what social worker Millicent Makenyeh calls their emotional baggage. The burden of abuse, beatings, poverty, hunger that has forced its way into their soul.
Makenyeh says: ‘We try to recognise their talents, their abilities, and somehow prepare them for a trade.’ But giving them something else is much more important: confidence, stability. And the hope of a happy life ahead of them, which is by no means a given.
Fokko Doyen pulls on one of the football jerseys he has brought for the boys and girls. He joins them on the lawn, speaks with them, uses warm, kind words to say what he wants to, but doesn’t mince words either. Nothing is for free, not even the aid that is flown in by plane from Germany. That’s why they need to apply themselves too, most of all to their studies.
A drive through dusty Nairobi, past building sites, shacks and scintillating street markets. Doyen arrives at the John Kaheni Residence, which was also established by Cargo Human Care. Teenagers living here carry what social worker Millicent Makenyeh calls their emotional baggage. The burden of abuse, beatings, poverty, hunger that has forced its way into their soul.
Makenyeh says: ‘We try to recognise their talents, their abilities, and somehow prepare them for a trade.’ But giving them something else is much more important: confidence, stability. And the hope of a happy life ahead of them, which is by no means a given.
Fokko Doyen pulls on one of the football jerseys he has brought for the boys and girls. He joins them on the lawn, speaks with them, uses warm, kind words to say what he wants to, but doesn’t mince words either. Nothing is for free, not even the aid that is flown in by plane from Germany. That’s why they need to apply themselves too, most of all to their studies.
Never would the young boy from East Frisia have dreamt that Africa would become such an important part of his life. He grew up on the family farm, was born in his parents’ bedroom. Back then, his village consisted of only 400 inhabitants, pastures and feeding troughs. Doyen recalls: ‘The circumstances were modest, my father worked in the dairy and made just enough money to get by. To our family, the concept of a holiday was completely foreign.’
Fokko Doyen decided to begin his own life’s journey early on. He completed secondary school, attended a polytechnic and studied engineering. At 15, he went to sea, at age 21 he joined Lufthansa as a flight engineer, later becoming a co-pilot, then a captain. He flew the 727, then a long-distance Boeing 747-200. Finally, he switched to Lufthansa Cargo, where he ended up as fleet manager.
Never would the young boy from East Frisia have dreamt that Africa would become such an important part of his life. He grew up on the family farm, was born in his parents’ bedroom. Back then, his village consisted of only 400 inhabitants, pastures and feeding troughs. Doyen recalls: ‘The circumstances were modest, my father worked in the dairy and made just enough money to get by. To our family, the concept of a holiday was completely foreign.’
Fokko Doyen decided to begin his own life’s journey early on. He completed secondary school, attended a polytechnic and studied engineering. At 15, he went to sea, at age 21 he joined Lufthansa as a flight engineer, later becoming a co-pilot, then a captain. He flew the 727, then a long-distance Boeing 747-200. Finally, he switched to Lufthansa Cargo, where he ended up as fleet manager.
A dream career. The world sailed by beneath him. The sky belonged to him. But he never once forgot that what he was flying over, 36,000 feet below the mighty wings and engines of his jets, was anything but a picture-book world. Doyen had seen enough on his travels. He knew that millions of people were living in poverty and abject need.
So he started to get involved. No talk. Action. The rest is history.
Perhaps also because even as a boy, Doyen had understood the unadorned sense of the word wanderlust, realising that it wasn’t just a longing to travel, but rather a chance to break out. To develop opportunities and perspectives beyond his own horizons.
A dream career. The world sailed by beneath him. The sky belonged to him. But he never once forgot that what he was flying over, 36,000 feet below the mighty wings and engines of his jets, was anything but a picture-book world. Doyen had seen enough on his travels. He knew that millions of people were living in poverty and abject need.
So he started to get involved. No talk. Action. The rest is history.
Perhaps also because even as a boy, Doyen had understood the unadorned sense of the word wanderlust, realising that it wasn’t just a longing to travel, but rather a chance to break out. To develop opportunities and perspectives beyond his own horizons.
Never would the young boy from East Frisia have dreamt that Africa would become such an important part of his life. He grew up on the family farm, was born in his parents’ bedroom. Back then, his village consisted of only 400 inhabitants, pastures and feeding troughs. Doyen recalls: ‘The circumstances were modest, my father worked in the dairy and made just enough money to get by. To our family, the concept of a holiday was completely foreign.’
Fokko Doyen decided to begin his own life’s journey early on. He completed secondary school, attended a polytechnic and studied engineering. At 15, he went to sea, at age 21 he joined Lufthansa as a flight engineer, later becoming a co-pilot, then a captain. He flew the 727, then a long-distance Boeing 747-200. Finally, he switched to Lufthansa Cargo, where he ended up as fleet manager.
A dream career. The world sailed by beneath him. The sky belonged to him. But he never once forgot that what he was flying over, 36,000 feet below the mighty wings and engines of his jets, was anything but a picture-book world. Doyen had seen enough on his travels. He knew that millions of people were living in poverty and abject need.
So he started to get involved. No talk. Action. The rest is history.
Perhaps also because even as a boy, Doyen had understood the unadorned sense of the word wanderlust, realising that it wasn’t just a longing to travel, but rather a chance to break out. To develop opportunities and perspectives beyond his own horizons.
This afternoon, he stands in a Nairobi courtyard, carefully choosing his words and gestures, searching for a suitable vocabulary to address youngsters who have to somehow survive thousands of worlds below regular cruising altitude.
Fokko Doyen, the flying mzungu from East Frisia, could be by the ocean right now. On a white beach with green palms. But that’s the great thing about travel: each of us gets to define wanderlust our own way.
We want to help them acquire confidence, stability. And the hope of a happy life ahead of them, which is by no means a given.
Marc Bielefeld
Author
From a balloon to the desert, out to sea, into the ice: in twelve captivating reports and podcasts, the author describes fascinating places around the world and encounters with remarkable people.
marcbielefeld.de
Jens Görlich
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Great moments, peaceful bliss, poignant scenes: the photographer from Frankfurt always has his camera ready to capture what words can’t express.
jens-goerlich.de
Lufthansa
Aluminium Collection
Travel companion
The suitcase also proved to be a faithful travelling companion in Kenya. It brought gifts to the aid projects, swallowed the dust of the savannah and bravely rolled through a herd of camels.
worldshop.eu/alu
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