Transparency
creates trust
Transparency seal
The ZEWO Foundation refuses to award its seal of approval to Emmaus Children's Relief, as it rejects personal child sponsorships as a matter of principle. Since 2016, we have had the equivalent IDEAS Aidrating Transparency Seal, which confirms our seriousness and transparency in development cooperation.
Development cooperation criteria
The independent association IDEAS has audited the finances of Emmaus Children's Aid and confirms that we handle donations conscientiously and provide the public with transparent information about our activities. The IDEAS Aidrating Transparency Seal confirms our seriousness. Emmaus Children's Relief complies with the following criteria for auditing, supporting and monitoring its development cooperation projects.
The Emmaus Children's Aid Association is inspired by the motto "Help the poorest first!". It makes no denominational, political or other distinctions and pursues the purpose:
- To help children in difficult circumstances mentally, emotionally and materially and to enable them to attend school or get an education
- to realize own aid projects in this sense and to support existing diverse projects of development cooperation (sponsorships, family aid, building projects, project sponsorships, health and hygiene programs, etc.)
- cooperate with other local, national or international organizations pursuing similar purposes
Emmaus Children's Aid supports social institutions in the service of needy and destitute children (personal sponsorships), families and development projects (village, neighborhood, city). Although we are active worldwide on a non-denominational basis, we also work together with church aid organizations that care for children, families and communities of all religious affiliations. Our current 32 partner institutions in developing countries are local, national and international aid organizations, children's homes, orphanages, schools, training workshops and facilities for the disabled. Most of our partner institutions are non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The partner institutions that Emmaus Children's Relief considers for development cooperation usually contact us themselves with a request for help. They have to work and function independently. New institutions in India, where the majority of our projects are located, are first visited by the president of the aid organization "St. Antony's Foundlings" (Kanji) and evaluated in terms of history, goals and activities, personnel, finances and accounting. New institutions in South America (Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina) as well as in Madagascar and Haiti are visited and evaluated by managers of existing partner institutions in these countries. On rare occasions, we also meet with the managers of the new institutions to be supported in Switzerland. The evaluation reports are carefully checked by us (compliance with the purpose of our association, accuracy, seriousness, sustainability, etc.).
Emmaus Children's Aid exclusively supports very poor, orphaned or abandoned children (personal sponsorships), threatened, impoverished or broken families (family aid) and underdeveloped, destitute or disaster-stricken communities (projects). Our partner institutions, with whom we have been working for many years, select the children, families and projects concerned. All the children we support go to school, complete an apprenticeship or study. The only exceptions are some widows and disabled adults who are unable to generate an income.
All projects that guarantee sustainability and lead needy children, young people and adults into private and professional independence are worthy of support: Education and training, job creation and microcredits, family aid such as renovation and construction of homes, hygiene programs and family planning courses, distribution of sewing machines, hand mills, dairy cows, goats, etc., emergency aid such as medicines, wheelchairs, operations, etc., community aid such as the construction of wells, toilets, schools, homes, etc.
Cooperation with a new partner institution begins with small support contributions and a few sponsorships. We expect those responsible to cooperate as smoothly as possible and request, among other things, photographs, family information and letters of thanks from the sponsored children to their sponsors, progress reports on the children and their families, cost estimates and budgets for projects, project and annual reports as well as confirmations of receipt for our assistance and revised annual accounts with the corresponding receipts. If the cooperation works and we are convinced of the efficiency and sustainability of the new partner institution's activities, we gradually increase our support contributions and take on more sponsorships.
In the partner institutions of Emmaus Children's Relief, the sponsorship contributions are not only used for the children in our sponsorship program, but for all children who are cared for by the partner institutions. For example, if a partner institution looks after a total of 100 children and only 50 of these children are in our sponsorship program, the sponsorship contributions may be used for all children. Our only condition is that the children in our sponsorship program receive everything they need for their physical, mental and spiritual development: Good clothing, healthy food, medical care, appropriate supervision, school attendance, school materials and school uniforms. Only one partner institution is an exception: at the children's charity "Hogares del Espítitu Santo" in Buenos Aires (Argentina), we support all 20 children in the home and an additional 86 children at the affiliated elementary school with sponsorships.
The management (managing director, assistant) of Emmaus Children's Relief regularly visits and evaluates local partner institutions (on average every five years). In particular, visits are made to those partner institutions with which cooperation is being established or with which the existing cooperation is not optimal.
If differences arise with a partner institution of Emmaus Children's Relief (non-compliance with agreements, non-delivery of information and documents, interruption of correspondence, etc.), the following procedures are applied:
- We seek discussions by correspondence and set clear deadlines. This process can take up to a year and a half, as we do not want to prematurely abandon the support we have built up - for the sake of the sponsored children and ongoing projects.
- In the event of continued poor cooperation and non-delivery of requested reports, photographs and thank-you letters from sponsored children, project reports, revised annual accounts, etc., we will suspend our semi-annual aid payments.
- If our cooperation with the partner institution improves after a one-off suspension of aid and the differences can be overcome, we will resume financial support.
If the partner institution expresses its willingness to cooperate after a one-off suspension of aid, but remains uncooperative, we instruct our above-mentioned employee in Kanji in India or a manager of one of our partner institutions in South America to seek a personal meeting with the managers of the uncooperative partner institution, re-evaluate the institution and report back to us in detail. If we succeed in instructing and motivating those responsible to continue working efficiently with us, we resume our financial support. If this is not successful and the evaluation is negative, the cooperation with the partner institution is terminated.
Cooperation documents
The following examples of working papers from Emmaus Children's Relief document the cooperation with its partner institutions.
