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The foundation ZEWO refuses to confer its seal of approval to Children's Care Emmaus because personal child sponsorships are generally denied. Since 2016 we hold the equivalent transparency seal by IDEAS Aidrating which proves our seriousness and transparency as to development cooperation.

Criteria of development cooperation

The independent association IDEAS has checked our finances and confirms that we handle the donations conscientiously and that we give the public a transparent information of our activities. The IDEAS Aidrating seal for transparency proves the seriousness of our institution. Children's Care Emmaus is guided by the following criteria to assess, to support and to accompany its projects of development cooperation.

The association Children's Care Emmaus is inspired by the motto «Serve the most needy first». It does not make any confessional, political or whatever differences and pursues the goal:

 

  • to help children in difficult circumstances mentally, emotionally and materially and making available to them the school attendance or an education;

  • to realize in this sense own aid projects and to support existing manifold projects of development cooperation (sponsorships, family aid, building projects, project sponsorships, health and hygiene programs, etc.);

  • to cooperate with other local, national or international organizations with similar purposes.

Children's Care Emmaus supports social institutions in favour of needy and destitute children (personal sponsorships), families and development projects (village, quarter, town). Although we are active worldwide on an interdenominational level, we also cooperate with church institutions caring for children, families and communities regardless of whatever religious affiliation. Our presently 32 partner institutions in developing countries are local, national and international relief organizations, children's homes, orphanages, schools, training workshops and disabled facilities. Most of these are non-governmental aid organizations (NGOs).

The partner institutions considered by Children's Care Emmaus in view of a development cooperation mostly approach us themselves with a request for help. They must be able to act independently and efficiently. New institutions in India where most of our projects are concentrated will first be visited by the President of the relief organization «St. Antony's Foundlings» in Kanji and be evaluated as to history, aims and activities, personnel, finances and accounting. New institutions in South America (Columbia, Bolivia and Argentina) as well as in Madagascar and in Haiti are visited and evaluated by responsible persons of existing partner institutions in these countries. It rarely happens that we personally meet the responsibles of the new organizations to be supported for discussion in Switzerland. The evaluation reports are carefully checked at our end (agreement with our association's purpose, correctness, seriousness, sustainability, etc.).

Children's Care Emmaus solely supports very poor, orphaned or taken from the street children (personal sponsorships), threatened, impoverished or broken families (family aid) and backward, destitute or disaster-damaged communities (projects). Our partner institutions we cooperate with for many years select the respective children, families and projects. All the children we support go to school, attend an apprenticeship or study. Exceptions are some widows and handicapped adults who cannot generate income.

Worthy of support are all those projects which guarantee sustainability and lead to private and professional independence of needy children, teens and adults: Education and training, job creation, microcredits, family aid such as renovation and building little houses, hygiene programs and family planning courses, supply of sewing machines, hand mills, dairy cows, goats, etc., emergency aid such as medication, wheelchairs, surgeries, etc., community help such as building bore-wells, toilets, school buildings, homes, etc.

The cooperation with a new partner institution starts with small contributions and few sponsorships. We expect the responsibles to cooperate as smoothly as possible, to provide photos, familiar information and thanking letters by the godchildren to their godparents, progress reports about the children and their families, cost proposals and budgets of projects, project and annual reports as well as acknowledgments of receipt of our support contributions and revised annual statements including the respective receipts. If the cooperation works and if we have been convinced by the efficiency and sustainability of the activities of the new partner institution, we gradually increase our support contributions and take on further sponsorships.

Within the partner institutions of Children's Care Emmaus the sponsorship contributions are not only used for the children of our sponsorship program but also for all the children cared for by the partner institutions. If for example a partner institution cares for a total of 100 children and only 50 of them are covered by our sponsorship program our sponsorship contributions may be used for all the children. Our only condition: The children under our sponsorship program have to be given all they need for their physical, mental and spiritual development: Good clothes, healthy nutrition, medication, appropriate care, school attendance, school material and school uniforms. A sole exception is one partner institution: In the children's care «Hogares del Espíritu Santo» in Buenos Aires (Argentina) we support all the 20 home children and in addition 86 children of the affiliated primary school with sponsorships.

 The management team (Executive Secretary and Assistant) of Children's Care Emmaus regularly visits the partner institutions on site (on average every five years). Especially those partner institutions are visited with which we are about to establish a cooperation or where an existing cooperation is not optimal.

If differences occur in relation with a partner institution of Children's Care Emmaus (non-compliance with agreements, non-delivery of information and documents, interruption of correspondence, etc.) the following procedures will be applied:

 

  • We are looking for a contact by letter and set clear deadlines. This procedure may last up to an year and a half as we do not hastily want to abandon a support once built up – this for the sake of the godchildren and the running projects.

  • With continued poor cooperation and non-delivery of requested reports, photos and thanking letters of godchildren, project reports, revised annual statements, etc. we suspend our half-yearly paid assistance.

  • If our cooperation with the partner institution improves after a one-off suspension of the assistance and the differences can be overcome, we will resume financial support.

 

If after a one-off suspension of the assistance a partner institution expresses its willingness to cooperate but remains uncooperative, we commission our above mentioned collaborator in India or a responsible of our partner institutions on site in South America to look for a personal interview with the responsible of the uncooperative partner institution, to re-evaluate the institution and to report to us in detail. If it succeeds to convince and motivate the responsible to continue cooperation with us efficiently, we resume our financial assistance. If it does not succeed and the evaluation remains negative, our cooperation with the partner institution will be terminated.

Documents of cooperation

 

The following examples of working papers of Children's Care Emmaus document the cooperation with its partner institutions.