VOIX LIBRES

Voix Libres is a swiss humanitarian association which allows children working in mines, garbage dumps and streets to become self-entrepreneurs once they have completed their studies supported by the association. These actions allow a united and sustainable development of the concerned communities.

Mission: To improve the autonomy and dignity of marginalized populations by:

1. Developing alternatives to the inhumane living conditions these children face.

2. Working to eradicate intra-family violence

3. Encouraging entrepreneurship.

Since Voix Libres was founded in 1993, around one million people have been direct beneficiaries of its support. Some 120’000 persons have received interest-free credits and 22 community centres have been financed, comprising foster homes, day-care centers, schools and skills workshops as well as shelters for battered women.

Seventeen united enterprises  have been set up. A direct fair-trade economy between Bolivian producers and Europeen consumers has been introduced to help the poorest of the population. This economy continues to grow.

All donations and micro-credits are allocated to financing projects. Over 80% of the beneficiaries of micro-credits are women.

Through these micro-credits, beneficiaries become responsible and learn a trade that matches their vocation.

Furthermore, the beneficiary communities learn about commitment to the common good and about the importance of ethical values.

Programmes: “Fait treatment” campaigns; prevention and eradication of child labour; education and training; food self-sufficiency; health; micro-credit; creation of small enterprises; creation of infrastructures.

Fondation Albatros is supporting Voix Libres since 2008.

Access official website

albatrosVOIX LIBRES
read more

TOUTES A L’ECOLE

“Toutes à l’école” works in Cambodia.

Its school, Happy Chandara, founded in 2006, provides free schooling for girls who live in peri-urban communities around Phnom-Penh.

The school includes a primary school, a junior high school, a senior high school (under construction), a vocational training centre, a boarding school and a health centre.

Mission statement: to provide assistance to children in difficulty, by participating in the establishment and development of education, school and training activities promoting the integration of girls and young women, and activities to support their families.

“Toutes à l’école” provides education to around 1000 girls, currently taking them through to the third year of junior high school (education through to the last year of senior high school is already scheduled to start) or to a choice of occupation through the professional training programmes offered by the organisation.

Every year, around a hundred girls start school at Happy Chandara.

The organisation also supports public schools by providing English and computer courses to public school children. It also provides public schools with one-off material assistance (renovating classrooms, new toilet facilities, donating school supplies).

Finally, the organisation supports the girls’ families through the regular distribution of food parcels and hygiene kits.  They are regularly visited by social workers to assess their needs.

Objectives:

  • To offer a high level education to the most underprivileged young girls to allow them access to a job that will give them freedom and dignity.
  • To support the girls until they get their first job, whether they choose the university route or vocational training.
  • To enable young Cambodian women to access occupations requiring a high level of skills.
  • To help the girls’ families who live in particularly precarious conditions.

The Albatros Foundation has been supporting “Toutes à l’école” since 2015.

Access official website

albatrosTOUTES A L’ECOLE
read more

As’trame Foundation

Fondation As’trame is active in Switzerland, in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva. Its mission consists in supporting families in crisis situations where family relationships have been broken down due to sickness, parental separation or death, since all break downs are dangerous to the physical and/or psychological health of children and adults.

As’trame offers a psychosocial non-medicalised approach to address the troubles resulting from the breakdown of family ties.

As’trame accompanies families, more specifically children, through individual and group therapies built around siblings or children of the same age.

Objectives of the therapeutic work:

  • Lay the foundations of a healthy process of dealing with family breakdowns
  • Avoid the negative and potentially pathologic consequences of the breakdown of family relationships for the lives of children or adults.
  • Support adults or families going through difficult situations due to marital separation, serious illness or death of a close relative.
  • In parallel, through training modules, As’trame puts its experience to the service of professionals facing this type of situation within the framework of their practice.

The foundation has created a specific tool allowing it to offer a brief and mentored therapeutic support to relief suffering and prevent the risks triggered by family relationships’ breakdowns: the reliance path. Through 6 sessions including an assessment session, it allows to lay the foundations necessary for a healthy grief process to take place and to start it during the path through the stimulation of the resilience capacity.

Fondation Albatros has been supporting Fondation As’trame since 2015.

Go the the official website

albatrosAs’trame Foundation
read more

East Meets West Foundation

East Meets West is active in Cambodia, Laos, India, Myanmar, Philippines, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.

Mission statement: to transform the health, education and communities of disadvantaged people in Asia by building partnerships, developing opportunities and creating sustainable solutions.

The core programs are in the areas of education, healthcare, clean water & sanitation and infrastructure.

East Meets West was born from one woman’s dream of helping to heal the wounds of war between the United States and Vietnam.

“Since 1988, East Meets West has served millions of people in Asia, from providing rural villagers with clean water, to saving newborns by modernizing neonatal wards, to constructing large medical and educational facilities that serve tens of thousands of people every day.”

Fondation Albatros supported East Meets West from 2009 to 2012.

Access official website

albatrosEast Meets West Foundation
read more

NEW PARTNERSHIP

From September 2015, the Albatros Foundation will support the french association “Toutes à l’école” which, since 2006,  freely send to school the most underprivileged girls from the peri-urban areas of Phnom Penh in it’s school Happy Chandara.

The founder, Mrs Tina Kieffer, has decided to give priority to girls education, willing to bring her contribution to the still important cambodian gender inequality: only 36% of the children going to school in Cambodia are girls.

The Albatros Foundation, will support 2 classes of 25 girls.

Currently, Happy Chandara welcomes 1000 girls from 6 to 14 years old.  Every year, 100 girls start their education there.

The girls from the poorest families are accepted in priority (monthly income lower than 100 US$).

In addition to the khmer national programme, the schoolgirls study english, french and computer science.

A  hairdressing vocational centre opened in September 2013.

The first class of high school students will start in September 2015.

With these two orientations (high school and vocational training), Happy Chandara gives the opportunity to choose between third education or a professional course.  In this way, the young girls are accompanied until their admission at university or their first employment.

albatrosNEW PARTNERSHIP
read more

New partnership

« Les Enfants du Parc »

AN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT THAT SHAPES INDIVIDUALS FROM CHILDHOOD TO THE VERGE OF ADULTHOOD

This project supports underprivileged parents, mostly from foreign backgrounds, in the education of their children (aged from 6 to 15) by providing learning support, sporting and recreational activities and holiday camps. It aims to help parents facing various social integration problems (limited understanding of French, precarious employment, unemployment, single parent families) in their educational role.

Objectives:

  • To prevent the risk of marginalisation and the development of risk behaviour (dropping out of school, addiction, violence, breaking family ties …).
  • To foster a thirst for knowledge and love of learning.
  • To impart a taste for school work though an educational approach that focuses less on the academic performance of homework and more on the acquisition of knowledge and know-how through fun activities.
  • To instil values such as commitment, respect for rules and other people, and the value of hard work.
  • To grow and mature by sharing and building relationships of friendship and trust.

The beneficiaries are supported by an educational professional and a team of volunteers. Les Enfants du Parc places great emphasis on volunteering, particularly by its previously idle older students, who are now mobilised and trained to mentor younger students. La Fondation Apprentis dAuteuil invested in this project because it reflects its values:

  • In education, no situation is hopeless: young people who regain confidence in themselves and in adults can express their potential and embark on a successful educational and career path.
  • Whatever their path in life, all children have potential, abilities and skills. It is up to the people around the child to enable him or her to express them.
  • Play is a powerful educational tool. Too many children do not know or have forgotten how to play, because their imagination has been suppressed.  Les Enfants du Parc is working to rekindle children’s imagination and their ability to dream and create.

Access official website

albatrosNew partnership
read more

Mercy Ships

Founded in 1978 in Lausanne by Don and Deyon Stephens, Mercy Ships is an international humanitarian organization based on Christian values. Its mission is to improve access to surgical care in developing countries.
Mercy Ships helps the poor without distinction of race, gender or religion.
It also supports local development through training programs and medical facilities renovations, in order to sustainably improve the health systems of the countries visited. This is done in close collaboration with the host countries.
Mercy Ships is currently working in the Republic of Cameroon, with its ship, the Africa Mercy, based in the port of Douala.
Medical programs (more information on the organization’s website):

  • Plastic reconstructive surgery
  • Orthopedic surgery
  • Maxillofacial surgery
  • Gynecological surgery
  • General surgery
  • Ophthalmic care
  • Dental care

Other programs:
Training and capacity building: for surgeons and other local health professionals, who can also learn to manage and repair biomedical equipment as well as hospital administration.
Infrastructure renovations and small equipment donations: to improve hygiene and working conditions in local hospitals and clinics, allowing better patients’ care.
Agricultural Training: for families and poor communities to improve the quality of their food and thus improve their health.
Orphanage: The House of Hope in Benin welcomes children with a painful past, who may find peace and hope here. The House of Hope is a personal initiative recognized and supported by Mercy Ships Switzerland.

All volunteers!
Mercy ships operates on a voluntary basis: each year, over a thousand volunteers from over 40 nations are committed with Mercy Ships. Professionals, such as surgeons, dentists, nurses, cooks, electricians, housekeepers, plumbers, bakers, receptionists, donate their time and skills to make a difference.

See the video Mercy Ships

Access official website

albatrosMercy Ships
read more

Female foeticide, infanticide and the failure to educate girls: 3 forms of gender discrimination that are still all too present

More than 100 million women are therefore currently missing from the world, with China and India alone accounting for 80 million missing women.

When it is time to start school, girls from families living in extreme poverty will often be sacrificed in favour of boys. Families know that, in a labour market that favours men, men will have more chance of finding a stable job and will be better paid than women.

If they are lucky, girls from underprivileged communities (usually in low income countries) will be allowed to attend school for a few years but will be removed from school when they reach pre-adolescence to be used as work force and/or married young – against their will, needless to say.

Education is one of the main areas in which girls are still subjected to discrimination today.

Girls currently make up 54% of all out-of-school children worldwide. In other words, 32 million girls do not go to school.

Two-thirds of illiterate adults are women (66.6 million women).

In 2015, 31% of countries had still not achieved gender parity in primary education. This figure rises to 62% for secondary education.

Fortunately, immense progress has been made in twenty years: the percentage of out-of-school girls in developing countries has fallen from 58 to 53%.

Girls are still particularly disadvantaged in the Arab States, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The education of girls has significant positive knock-on effects: an educated young women will earn at least 25% more income than her illiterate counterpart, leading to autonomy and enabling her to contribute to the economic well-being of the country by participating in the creation of wealth. In terms of health, she can effectively protect herself from viruses and pass on her knowledge to her children, who will in turn enjoy better health. Then, having experienced and understood the value of education, she will do all she can to send her children to school.

The education of girls is the cornerstone of economic and social development.

Every young and teenage girl should be able to go to school and stay there.

Since 2016, the Albatros Foundation has been committed to achieving gender equality in education.  It therefore supports two organisations that are working to give girls the same opportunities to access education as boys:  Educate Girls and Toutes à l’école.

albatrosFemale foeticide, infanticide and the failure to educate girls: 3 forms of gender discrimination that are still all too present
read more

FONDATION APPRENTIS D’AUTEUIL INTERNATIONAL (FAAI)

The Foundation draws on the experience of its French parent organisation, the Fondation Apprentis d’Auteuil, which summarises its principle task as follows:    welcome – educate – train – integrate young people in difficulty.

The FAAI pursues three main goals:

  • To advocate on behalf of vulnerable young people and families on the international stage.
  • To support, the development of projects to help street children, young people who need support with training and integration, and vulnerable families
  • To develop projects in Switzerland to help young people in difficulty, in partnership with Swiss organisations
  • Improve the quality of support for young people and families by sharing its education and teaching knowledge with its local partners.
  • Enhance and consolidate local initiatives by providing technical and methodological support.
  • Broaden the educational and career prospects of the young people assisted by its local partners.

The work is organised around 5 programmes:

  • Avenir d’Enfants: Protection of street children
  • Entrepreneuriat Jeunes: training and professional integration, business start-up assistance
  • Pas à Pas: education of the most vulnerable young people
  • Family Boost: supporting families in the education of their children
  • Meneurs de Paix: developing an international outlook in young people, peace education of young people, for further information: www.faai.ch

The Albatros Foundation has been supporting the FAAI since 2016 through an after school care project in Geneva: Les Enfants du Parc

Go to the official site

See the video

albatrosFONDATION APPRENTIS D’AUTEUIL INTERNATIONAL (FAAI)
read more

Mercy Ships – New mission in Benin – Hospital opening

On 18 August 2016, the Africa Mercy and its crew docked in their new home country for the next 10 months – Benin, in West Africa.
Mercy Ships chose Benin because of its very limited access to medical care – the country has only 10 hospital beds and 1 doctor for every 20,000 inhabitants. The country’s health care system is in crisis.
During its mission in Benin, more than 1,700 operations will be performed on more than 835 adults and children, around 8,000 people will be treated at a land-based dental clinic, and holistic health care training will be provided to local health professionals.
The first few weeks were given over to meeting potential patients at the patient screening centre set up in Cotonou. The five operating theatres on board the Africa Mercy opened their doors on 12 September to welcome the first patients.
Mercy Ships can’t wait to see all the lives transformed by surgery and training during its mission in Benin!

Learn more

albatrosMercy Ships – New mission in Benin – Hospital opening
read more