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4 A N N UA L A C T I V I T I E S R E P O R T
Keeping children in school and providing them with education
also keeps them in a safe and sheltered environment and prevents
risks of exploitation and trafficking to which extremely poor
communities are vulnerable. According to Unicef, in Thailand,
“children who are poor, have minimal education, lack vocational
skills or have few prospects for job opportunities are most at risk
of being trafficked.”
Education is more than schooling, it is crucial for poverty alleviation,
to protect and empower children, and to help prevent the risks
of exploitation and trafficking, and to reduce gender inequality.
According to UNESCO , “one extra year of schooling increases
a person’s earnings by up to 10%. 171 million people could be
lifted out of poverty if all students in low-income countries left
school with basic reading skills.”
In the words of Pasquale Pistorio, “...children deserve the maximum
attention: first, to protect them as they are the most vulnerable
human beings; and second, to educate them because they will
be the future citizens of the planet...”
These beliefs have guided us in our strategy that is aimed at
empowering communities to help themselves and their future
generations for long-term impact. We have partnered with
experienced and successful NGOs to reach out to as many
children in need as possible, while keeping our overhead costs at a
minimum. We have leveraged on the expertise of local grassroots
NGOs in Burkina Faso, Morocco and Cambodia with whom we
share a vision and holistic approach to supporting children and
their communities, providing not only education but also health,
nutrition, social/psychological and community development.
Working closely with our partners, through our network of
volunteers, we regularly audit both Scholarship Programs and
Infrastructure Projects through our volunteer network and are
actively involved in every stage of projects from definition, to
implementation and assessment.
Our volunteers meet with all stakeholders, including beneficiaries,
school staff, families of beneficiaries, and track progress of children
through children’s files and records that are updated regularly.
For our flagship Chiang Rai Village Project, 2014 has been an
important year of transition. We have set up our own offices
and staff in Chiang Rai, led by our country manager Giovanni
Santavicca. In Chiang Rai, we have completed over 30 infrastructure
projects, served over 16 village communities and reached over
2,000 hill-tribe minority children since 2006. Over the past ten
years, the villages we have served have developed rapidly.
Today, our staff is positioned to scale and replicate the village
model approach to more villages that are still in extreme poverty
in Northern Thailand.
We measure the progress of our Scholarship Programs through
key performance indicators that include the number of students
who complete professional school, student pass rate, student
retention rate, pupil/teacher ratio, rate of absences of teachers,
and overall scores of children compared to national average.
There is also a continuous dialogue with school staff, teachers,
beneficiaries, and families to assess the progress of students and
quality of education.
The Secondary School in Burkina built by the Foundation in
2013, which now holds over 700 students, is regarded as the best
secondary school in western Burkina. Our Official Non Formal
Education Project for street children in Morocco is considered
the best of its kind in the country. In Thailand, some of our
students have won national and regional awards, and one of our
village schools has hosted this year the Princess Maha Chakri
Sirindhorn. In Cambodia, our partner NGO’s school has become
a model for the government, and is being replicated in 6 provinces
throughout the country.
In 2014, 88 students successfully obtained a Professional School
Degree (18 in Cambodia, 59 in Thailand, 11 in Morocco), which
allows them to compete on the job market for fairly paid and
respectable jobs. To date, 335 students have completed professional
school (90 in Cambodia, 228 in Thailand, and 17 in Morocco).
The students who have graduated will be earning every year more
than 155 CHF, that is several times more than their parents. They
will be earning an aggregate income of over 50,000 CHF per year.
Most of the former students who have started working are helping
to support their families and younger siblings.
The returns to society and the economy are therefore enormous
when children and families are lifted out of poverty (not to
mention the savings and prevention in health costs and costs tied
to social unrest and exploitation due to poverty). In Thailand,
with only 300SGD per year, a minority hill tribe child can receive
access to education, nutrition, and health care. The investment
in scholarships for underprivileged children can have the best
return on investment one could ever wish for.
The Foundation’s results have been achieved with minimal, close
to zero administration costs.
Marketing, fundraising, and administration functions have been
managed and run entirely by volunteers.
With an average Foundation budget of 500,000 CHF per year in
the past years, 100% have been channeled to projects on location.
Our yearly administration fees have not exceeded 3% of our budget
on average and have been absorbed by Board Members.