Had a humble beginning in 1993 when a group of seven German tourists visited the coastal villages of Alappuzha and felt the call within to empathize with the poor traditional fisher folk community. In 1994, the group, under the leadership of Prof. Paulus Flüeck, got more friends into the fold and in 1995 it was registered in Germany as a social work organization. Until the year 2000, it worked in collaboration with a local NGO and then got registered in India under the name SAMHATHI to reach out to more needy cutting across all man-made barriers of religion, caste and ideology.