Themes you can sponsor

Children’s Rights: the right to life, to healthcare, to nourishment, to education

In many parts of the world, children are denied their most basic rights, because they are victims of violence, war, drugs or prostitution. Terre des Homes Suisse supports those partners who fight to denounce the scandal of children who are unable to live in dignity and militate against those structures which condemn them to fear and exploitation. Terre des Homes endeavours to restore to these children their right to a childhood.

Children in Rural Areas

To improve children’s prospects, it is often necessary to change rural conditions, because in many countries it is often the rural exodus which causes irreversible damage such as the disintegration of family units or social relations. When a family can no longer make a living from the land, it has no other option but to emigrate to the suburbs of a big city in the hope of finding work.

Terre des Hommes Switzerland supports several programmes in rural areas aimed at improving family living conditions. This might involve support, for example, to a dispensary, where mothers can learn to better feed their children, or to schools which also give practical training in agriculture and animal husbandry, or again it might mean help to a group of women to create a crafts workshop, or to farm families to improve their food crops. In Burkina Faso, Brazil, Madagascar, Mali, India, Peru and Senegal, Terre des Hommes Suisse endeavours to prevent this rural exodus, the cause of so much misery.

Child Labour

Without the means of going to school or acquiring vocational training, countless children in the world are condemned to work. If, amongst the older ones, some have succeeded in using this life experience to better themselves, others, more numerous, suffer the worst forms of labour: rag pickers, domestic servants, rickshaw drivers, factory workers, or recruited for prostitution, these children will bear the scars of a shattered childhood all life long. A structure of exploitation which does not spare children in rural areas, where most child workers live.

"No to exploitation – yes to education!".This was the rallying cry of youngsters from the South during the Global March against Child Labour. Terre des Hommes heard it. This is why, in Haiti, India and Senegal, it supports health and education programmes for child workers together with partners who encourage their communities and authorities to put an end to exploitation and to put into effect a system of education for all.

Education

Terre des Hommes Suisse works to encourage universal access to well-adapted education. It supports teaching methods that are open, innovative and tailored to the needs of the individual in educational structures which allow learning in decent conditions. Our organisation also supports education that respects children's cultural and linguistic diversity.

With children, youth but also families, Terre des Hommes Switzerland intervenes in a number of different areas. Education is an important weapon in the fight against poverty and can also be an effective means of empowering women, promoting human rights and democracy. Becoming educated can make the individual more keenly aware of the need for environmental protection or strategies for effectively-managed population growth. As such it is nothing less than an instrument for profound social transformation. In spite of its fundamental role in the development process (and in spite of numerous political commitments of governments everywhere) millions of children are still denied their right to an education.

Terre des Hommes Suisse places great emphasis on this subject in the countries in which it is active, especially in India, Colombia, Peru, Senegal and Haiti.

Early Childhood

Everyone knows how important the first year of a child's life is to its future development.

When an infant suffers from malnutrition or dehydration they must be very carefully nursed back to health. In the centres which Terre des Hommes Suisse supports in Senegal and Burkina Faso new mothers receive general and nutritional guidance in order to prevent further cases of malnutrition which might be fatal.

When children live in the hostile environment of the slums and when the mother survives by doing odd jobs, like washing, domestic service, etc, the children are often locked in their home for fear of the dangers in the street. If they are lucky, a big sister will look after them when school is finished for the day. In Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay, Terre des Hommes Switzerland supports day care centres for the very young. Organised by the women of the neighbourhood with the help of child care professionals, these day nurseries provide shelter to infants from 0-4 years, balanced meals, and proper recreational facilities. They also act as a meeting place where mothers can interact and discuss their problems amongst themselves or receive guidance on such varied subjects as hygiene, primary health care, education or vocational training.

Finally, but still within the framework of programmes in favour of early childhood, in Haiti, the training of nursery school teachers in the slum district of Sun City, will allow children from 3 – 6 years to be better prepared on their entry into the primary school system.

Global Sponsorship

Supporting us with a Global Sponsorship means allowing us to attribute your donation to those who are most in need. This ensures continuing financial support to our Partners in the field committed to improving living conditions of children, their parents and their communities, whether in rural areas or the working class areas of the big cities, in Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Haiti, India, Madagascar, Mali, Peru, Senegal and Uruguay.