Last year, Terre des hommes, Switzerland's leading child protection organisation, demonstrated with more than 200 projects in 30 countries that it was able to adapt to a changing environment and ensure the continuity of its activities despite difficult contexts. Active and voluntary, children and young people have played a leading role in the impact of the activities on the ground.
Despite the spread of COVID-19 and growing insecurity in many countries, the staff of Terre des hommes (Tdh) and its many local partners worked hard last year to provide quality health and protection services to more than five million children and members of their communities directly and indirectly.
A large participatory project with schoolchildren in Nepal has enabled children to promote new practices among families and authorities to contribute to the fight against climate change. Sensitive to the future of future generations, Tdh has joined the Climate Action Accelerator initiative, alongside the ICRC and MSF, and has pledged to halve its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.
"This demonstrates that, despite a context that sometimes forces us to rethink our programmes and approaches, we can still achieve long-lasting change, especially when we put the ones most affected and best placed to tell us what their needs are first: the children and local players," says Barbara Hintermann, Director General of Tdh.
In 2021, children and youth from different cultures were involved in global research and advocacy to bring their opinions and ideas to the highest level. In collaboration with several UN agencies and partners, we organised the world's largest juvenile justice event in 2021. This World Congress took place in the presence of 4800 justice professionals with the active participation of children.
"We want equal access to justice in a way that does not discriminate, to share our opinions and have our views taken seriously, to make decisions about our own lives and get support from adults when we need it," said Angela from Romania.
Last year, children and young people were innovative in getting out of the gold mines. Thanks to the Resilience Innovation Facility of Tdh in Burkina Faso, those who decided to leave the mines were able to acquire skills in information technology, agricultural techniques and 3D printing. "I dream of training other children who will also be able to leave the mines," says 17-year-old Hamidou.
Discover more impact projects in our annual report: 2021.tdh.org
The Terre des hommes Foundation (Tdh) is the leading Swiss organisation for children's aid. In 2021, we supported two million children and members of their communities around the world with a focus on mother and child health, migration and access to justice for children. We trained people who in turn supported a further 3.1 million children and members of their communities. www.tdh.org