Heinz-HorstDeichmann founded the DEICHMANN Foundation on 29 August 1973.

The Foundation supported the Family Help Group which provides assistance to the homeless. This gave rise to similar activities being set up in Duisburg and Essen.

After a trip to Indian slums, Heinz-Horst Deichmann decided to found the charity wortundtat. The first partner was AMG India (Advancing the Ministries of the Gospel). The DEICHMANN Foundation is responsible for funding the majority of wortundtat’s work.

Wortundtat entered into a long-term partnership with the Greek organisation, Hellenic Minis­tries, Projects in Greece are still supported today.

The Essen Weigle-Haus offers voluntary youth work, street work and home help, as well as church worship, extending to include services, Christian group meetings, youth groups and a café. The Foundation mainly supported projects for children and young people in this case, such as offerings including music, exercise and learning or voluntary youth work and […]

Inspired by Heinz-Horst Deichmann, Fred Heimbach and Matomora Matomora started the wortundtat KIUMA project in Tanzania. For the people in a remote region, doctors, schools, vocational training opportunities and other services were made available for the first time.

The Foundation started to regularly promote medical research projects at the University Hospital of Esssen.

After a severe earthquake in India, the DEICHMANN Foundation participated in supplying emergency aid for victims and made a large donation to the “Prime Minister’s Fund”.

In August 2002, following days of extremely heavy rainfall, severe flooding occurred, among other things, in eastern and northern Germany and the DEICHMANN Foundation responded by making donations to emergency aid operations and reconstruction efforts.

The first funding of the Essen-based Dürer school was the first of many other funding commitments to schools in various parts of Germany.

After the earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, the Deichmann Foundation, together with the Indian wortundtat partner, provided first response services.

Heinrich-Otto Deichmann promoted a wortundtat partnership in the Republic of Moldova. In the following years, the Gloria project – a hitherto private social-church led services project organised by a number of Christians – extended its range of services to various locations in the south of the country.

Cardellino e.V. organises violin and cello lessons in Essen and received support from the DEICHMANN Foundation. This was followed by projects with similar aims, for example, the Folkwang School of Music, the JeKits project, the Jo­achim School and the Regional Ruhr Association.

The “Safe Start” project in Essen offers advice, support and information to expectant mothers and mothers with children under the age of three. The Foundation supported the work until ithe City of Essen took over the project as part of its standard project funding. This initiative was followed by funding provided to similar projects in […]

The Foundation made a significant contribution to the renovation of the Old Synagogue in Essen. Later in the year, it was involved in other projects helping to promote Jewish culture and anti-Semitism; these included educational programmes, memorial trips and language research projects at the Leo Baeck Institute.

The Stern im Norden is community centre where families with children can meet and get advice located in the Dortmund Nordstadt district. Welfare services are offered in a neighbourhood with many social challenges and the Foundation became the fifth partner of the aid organisation, wortundtat, which is primarily financed by the DEICHMANN Foundation.

Following an earthquake in Indonesia, the DEICHMANN Foundation supported emergency aid deployment provide by terre des hommes Germany.

The Foundation financed its first “Germany Scholarships” at the University of Essen. In subsequent years, scholarships were extended to the universities in Bremen, the Lower Rhine and Kaisers Lau­tern.  

A flood disaster in Pakistan caused huge suffering among the mostly poor population. A donation to the Caritas Association in the Diocese of Essen helped them continue to deliver their emergency aid.

Through a project offering work for food, the Foundation supported an organisation committed to helping people caught up in the Yemen civil war.

The teaching-learning centre at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Duisburg-Essen received funding enabling extension and modernisation of the facilities.

Heinrich-Otto Deichmann took over the chair of the Foundation after the passing of his father. He continues work in the spirit of the Foundation founder still today.

With the aim of helping refugees in Germany efficiently, as well as avoiding unnecessary red tape, the Foundation created and financed two coordination jobs for unsalaried volunteers. The Foundation also financed “interactive pen audio readers” and books helping school children to learn German at refugee homes in Essen, as well as vocational orientation courses for […]

The Foundation began cooperating with the Lebanese Society for Educational & Social Development. Among other things, it provided Syrian refugees in Lebanon with food through a network of volunteers.

The Foundation launched its support for the “Ultra Poor Projects” organised by Oppor­tu­nity In­ter­na­tional (OID) in Haiti and Malawi. OID helps people to get out of extreme poverty definitively by using their own skills and abilities.

The emergency and disaster relief organisation, MEDAIR, joined the ranks of the organisations partnering the DEICHMANN Foundation. Since then, the Foundation has been supporting MEDAIR operations in South Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Bangladesh, Jordan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Somalia and Afghanistan, to name a just few countries involved.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation supported numerous partner activities in Germany and abroad, including, for example, by donating masks, food aid, and measures aimed at protecting refugees in camps against infection, as well as many other missions.

To ensure that children in Germany learn to swim and have the possibility to take swimming lessons, the Foundation supported the Ein Herz für Kinder (a heart for children) program.

A pilot project to fight poverty in Kenya was launched by the Stern-Stiftung Foundation. The DEICHMANN Foundation joined the project as a major partner.  

After the worst flooding in a century in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Rhineland-Palatinate, the Foundation supported the German Red Cross and the Caritas Association for the Diocese of Essen

The Foundation was recognised as a charity promoter worthy of receiving funds from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Among other things, a drinking water well was drilled as the first common project in the Republic of Moldova.

Funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Foundation and its partner wortundtat built computer skills learning labs for 90 students in Tanzania. People who are enrolled in the project and those living in the surrounding area have been using them since the computer labs were inaugurated.

After 45 years, wortundtat will no longer be working with Indian partner, AMG India which, however, will continue its mission independently. The Indian not-for-profit will now take over the running of schools, health facilities and other services autonomously without support from wortundtat.

After the severe earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Foundation pledged commitment to various partners working in the affected region. In this way, help can be delivered quickly and directly to earthquake victims.

The DEICHMANN Foundation is celebrating its 50th anniversary. With the growth of DEICHMANN SE, the number of projects supported by the DEICHMANN Foundation has also increased over the years. In the year leading up to the anniversary, around 160 different projects were supported worldwide, 99 of which were in Germany.