This is Siti
She is 10 years old and up till last year, she worked on a garbage dump in Jakarta, Indonesia. Every day, she looked for recyclable materials such as plastic bottles to make some money. Terre des Hommes is committed to stop this kind of child exploitation. Together with a local partner, Terre des Hommes helps children like Siti to go back to school. Young people are given the opportunity to follow vocational training which gives them a chance of a better future. Parents receive information about the importance of education. For Siti, the support of Terre des Hommes has helped out a lot: instead of working at a garbage dump, she’s now working on a promising future at school.
About Us
Who are we?
Terre des Hommes Netherlands was established in 1965 by a group of volunteers. Terre des Hommes Netherlands started out as an organisation to provide direct emergency assistance to children. Its mandate and activities later shifted to structural support to stop child exploitation.
Where do we operate?
We work in fifteen countries (and provide emergency aid in two countries), spread across four regions in Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Africa and South America. The main office is based in The Hague, the Netherlands. We work in:
• Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Burma
• South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka
• South America: Bolivia, Brazil, Peru
• East Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda
• Haiti and Pakistan (emergency assistance)
What do we do?
Terre des Hommes Netherlands prevents child exploitation in developing countries, gets children out of exploitative situations and ensures that these children can continue their development in a safe environment. We make no distinctions based on race, faith, gender or political convictions.
How do we work?
Terre des Hommes supports, professionalises and works in cooperation with local project partners who are familiar with the needs of the children and the problems in the local community. That is why we have four regional offices: in Jakarta (Indonesia), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Nairobi (Kenya) and Cochabamba (Bolivia). Cooperation with local project partners takes place from these regional offices. Each regional office is headed by a regional director, who is also in charge of the various national offices.
We work on the basis of four programmes: exploitation, education, health and socio-economic development. These programmes are reflected in over 250 projects that we support in 15 countries (and emergency aid in 2 countries). This approach requires close cooperation between the four regional offices and the local project partners.
Where does the money come from?
Terre des Hommes derives its funding from various sources. First, we rely on donations from private individuals. In 2010, over 92,000 people donated more than six million euros in total. The revenues from the 28 Terre des Hommes shops totalled nearly one million euros. We received over 400,000 euros from the private sector (66 companies and equity funds in 2010). In addition, we have been part of the Cofinancing System (MFS) of the Dutch government since 2003. The annual subsidy between 2007 and 2010 was eight million euros a year.
In order to continue receiving government subsidies in 2011-2015, development aid organisations were required to cooperate more. Terre des Hommes formed an alliance with Liliane Fonds and the Children’s Postage Stamps Foundation (Stichting Kinderpostzegels) and submitted a proposal totalling 68 million euros for 2011-2015. The proposal was rejected on 1 November 2010. The alliance filed a successful objection to the subsidy rejection. In the coming years, the alliance will receive 32 million euros.
Another source of revenues for us is the annual contribution from the Dutch Post Code Lottery (Nationale Postcode Loterij). Fifty per cent of income from the lottery tickets sold by the Dutch Post Code Lottery is distributed over 83 charitable causes. In 2011, we received an amount of 2.25 million euros. A final source of revenue is subsidies received from the European Union.