Team / Representatives / Roles

We are three Austrians who share one thing in common: the desire to enable civilisation and coexistence not through conflict, but through dialogue, negotiation and mutual understanding.

We met in 2012. By ‘we’ I mean Andreas Gustav Andiel, my nephew Philipp Scherbaum and myself, Georg-Josef Scherbaum.

Each of us came with our own history, our own experiences and our own goals – and yet these complemented each other in a special way. Andreas, who later became our Secretary General, already had extensive experience with institutions at higher levels. He founded the GAFÉIAS association to open up new perspectives and pursue a self-determined career path.

With the support of the AMS, he developed a model that allowed him to work more freely and be his own boss. During this time, he completed numerous courses, particularly in the field of social skills, with different philosophical approaches. This engagement – with others and with himself – helped him to reorganise his life and make it more sustainable.

I myself retired at that time. It was clear to me that I wanted more than just leisure activities. My first attempt led me to beekeeping, but my spine, which had been damaged by my previous work, made it clear to me that this path was not viable. This made my real goal all the clearer: I wanted to pass on my life experiences and build something meaningful that extended beyond myself.

The third member of our alliance is Philipp, my nephew. He had a vision of bringing German-speaking students closer to Guatemala – similar to an ERASMUS stay. During his foreign service as a civil servant in Guatemala, he had had formative, positive experiences that he wanted to make possible for others. His idea was based on openness, exchange and intercultural learning.

As is so often the case in life, not everything worked out perfectly. Looking back, we can say that about half of our original goals have been achieved. But today we have both feet firmly on the ground – closer or further away from our projects, depending on our wishes – and we are proud of what has been achieved.

Andreas has got his own project, Light Your Fire, off the ground and now works successfully as a coordinator for everyday life and insurance broker, helping people, especially migrants, to find their way around Vienna’s administrative everyday life and organise their lives.

I myself have almost realised my dream of founding and running an association and am on a path of continuous learning – without the pressure of having to do everything perfectly.

What remains is our conviction that sustainable change does not come about through coercion, but through knowledge, dialogue and a willingness to learn from each other.