It’s a stark contrast. In Münsing, dentist Hanns-Werner Hey has had the magnificent oak tree on the meadow hill in the east of the village in front of him for decades when he commutes to his practice in Munich and back again. And when the weather is particularly nice, the Alps seem to shimmer bluish on the horizon. He himself speaks of a quiet idyll in the foothills of the Alps. Meanwhile, he encounters misery in the ramshackle prefabricated buildings from the Soviet Russian era in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. A woman lives with her blind son in an apartment with mold-black walls. She herself urgently needs medication for high blood pressure and for her sick kidneys. But she doesn’t have the money because there is just enough to pay for food and electricity for both of them. Another woman worked as a tractor driver on a collective farm. Her hands and feet are now arthritically crippled and she can only move sluggishly.
Hanns-Werner and his wife Karla Hey help these single women and pensioners in need with pensions of 20 euros a month. It is one of three projects of the Kyrgyzstan aid they initiated in 2005. In the past decade and a half, Hanns-Werner Hey has equipped Kyrgyz hospitals with medical devices for basic diagnostics. In addition, thanks to the donations, he was able to deliver 16 complete dental treatment stations and 1160 moving boxes with warm clothes and shoes to the Central Asian country. Kyrgyzstan Aid has been supporting the women’s protection organization “Sezim” with money since 2011 and was even able to finance the purchase of their own house in the previous year.
Karla and Hanns-Werner Hey help people in Kyrgyzstan, for which he was awarded by the federal government in June.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
In June, Hanns-Werner Hey received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his commitment. He has processed his experiences from 15 years of medical and humanitarian aid in a book. Hey writes self-critically that the most serious deficiencies have at best been remedied locally and selectively. The mini pensions and mini loans of 500 euros – to be repaid within two years – are just the proverbial drop in the ocean for him. But at the table in the garden of his house in the Ammerland district of Münsingen, Hey also says that he wanted to give something back for his privileged life in retirement – in 2005 he handed over his Munich dental practice to a successor. The fact that he can live and live in a safe environment is not only due to his own merit, but also to fortunate circumstances. This results in the obligation “to be open and helpful to other people’s problems”.
In 2005 Hey traveled to the Indian region of Ladakh and Ethiopia for medical aid missions. Both times his wife had accompanied him. They brought the books of the local writer Tschingis Aitmatow to Kyrgyzstan, which the couple reads enthusiastically and which begins to rave about his descriptions of life and landscapes. The couple obtained information about the country from the Wolfratshausen building contractor Reinhold Krämmel. The then honorary consul of the neighboring country Kazakhstan and today’s honorary consul of Kyrgyzstan became an important logistical support partner. Nevertheless, the commitment was difficult, for example because the corrupt bureaucracy made imports difficult or numerous devices and instruments simply disappeared. These were probably sold to get money.
Over the years, more than 300 people have donated to Kyrgyzstan aid, which is part of the Bayerische Ostgesellschaft (BOG) umbrella. Companies, medical and dental practices provided the organization with medical material and equipment from sonography to X-ray machines, as well as hospital beds and wheelchairs, free of charge or at reduced prices.
Help was particularly in demand in Mayluu-Suu in southwest Kyrgyzstan. The city name means “oily water” because oil is extracted in the area. Until the 1960s, however, uranium was mined and processed there. The area is heavily exposed to radiation. A New York institute ranked the city among the ten most poisonous places on earth. “If you can go away, you do it”, writes Hey in his book “Vom Wälzen haben haben stone”. He speaks of the shocking conditions in the hospital and clinic during a visit in 2008. The images from the X-ray machine from 1950 cannot be used for diagnosis. For example, EKGs and sterilizers are missing. The two dentists in the house only have a cord-driven drill.
In the patriarchal, Islamic structures of Kyrgyzstan, women are exposed to the violence of their husbands largely without protection. That’s how Hey puts it. The judiciary likes to push assaults into the realm of private affairs. This is why Kyrgyzstan Aid has been supporting the NUR (“Light of Hope”) women’s refuge of the Sezim organization since 2011. Up to six women could live in the facility with their children for six months, support each other and plan their future lives. With their donations, Kyrgyzstan Aid financed the rent, electricity and heating.
For reasons of age, the Hey couple have since withdrawn from the women’s shelter project. Because they wanted to secure it permanently, they looked for a house to buy, which they succeeded in 2020. For this they have collected 100,000 euros in donations. Her friend Eleonore von Rotenhan flew to Kyrgyzstan to find a suitable property with the Sezim organization. The house offers a temporary refuge for up to eight women with their children.
In order to help women from the NUR house build a professional life, Karla Hey has initiated a system of interest-free mini-loans. If you get the 500 euros, you have to pay the money back within two years. According to Hey, one woman was able to set up her own tailoring business and now employs ten women. She and her then three children sought protection in the women’s shelter because her husband was violent. She moved back with him, became pregnant and was returned to the women’s shelter because her husband left her without money.
A sentence by the writer Aitmatow best describes the sometimes arduous commitment of the Hey couple. “Man has to become a new person every day.”