Introduction

The Homeless Child Foundation was founded on January 14, 2003 with the motto “Give a child a chance, bring balance to the world”. Back then, the device already pointed out the most important motivation for founding Homeless Child: everyone benefits from a fair chance for children to have a chance to lead a healthy and happy life.

This policy document has two parts, because the foundation’s work in The Netherlands is substantially different from its activities in Honduras, where our partners are based.

The Netherlands

Homeless Child in The Netherlands in 2011 and 2012

From 2003 up to and including 2007, the foundation has grown considerably: the acquired funds and the number of active volunteers have tripled in this period of time. In 2008 the growth came to a halt and in 2009 the contributions decreased. With combined forces we managed to start growing again in 2010, which seems to have been propagated into 2011. Our goal is to increase our revenue in 2012 at the same pace.

With this goal in mind, early 2011 we enlisted a volunteer who focuses solely on fund raising with periodical contributors. To further encourage the development of the foundation, in the summer of the same year we decided to recruit a professional fund raiser, who is looking for new sources of income in exchange for a commission based on the “no cure, no pay” principle.

The foundation is actively seeking to acquire the hallmark of the CBF, the Central Bureau for Fund raising in the Netherlands, to attract new and bigger contributors and to also present them with the image of a reliable and stable foundation from the get-go. This does not imply in any way that we suddenly start using contributions for overhead and other costs. The rule to only use a maximum of 5% of business contributions to cover expenses has only been called to life recently – in 2010 – but all other contributions are used 100% for specific project targets in Honduras. Early 2012 the foundation would like to have acquired the CBF hallmark. For now the committee members and the unpaid director cover their expenses like office supplies, travel expenses and accommodations out of their own pockets.

In 2011 the management has been renewed, and a rapid expansion of the committee to five people is desirable. We strive to have each committee member work on much more specific portfolios so the foundation can grow further in an orderly and verifiable fashion. This way we would be able to decrease the number of tasks of the unpaid director and also limit them. Supervised by the committee members, in 2012 new volunteers will take on some of the director’s tasks, such as communication and marketing, website management, and fund raising.

This way we aim to further develop the foundation, in order to raise consciousness of the crucial war on poverty and to raise more funds in Honduras to be able to help larger groups of children, including girls.

Homeless Child in The Netherlands after 2012

The foundation will continue to strive towards a larger group of active volunteers and business connections. On one hand for the organization of activities and events, on the other hand for specific support with some tasks, such as marketing and fund raising, but also translation of documents, support with the website and the design, etc.

We will continuously look for co-operation with several layers of the government or with organizations like Wilde Ganzen and CordAid to acquire subsidies.

If the committee deems it desirable and the growth of the foundation permits it, we could decide to hire a paid employee, so further professionalism and consolidation of our base of contributors can raise the foundation to higher levels in the next years. Our goal is to continue growing at the same pace in 2013 and 2014 by consolidating the income out of fund raising and expanding the number of volunteers.

Honduras

The state of affairs in 2011

Homeless Child supports three local organizations in Honduras. Proniño is by far the most important partner and receives approximately 80% of the available funds; they provide shelter for street children from the ages of 6 to 19 years old.

A second partner, Hogar Suyapa, offers daycare to undernourished babies and toddlers and permanent care to children who are unable to return to their families, one condition being that children taken into permanent care must be under the age of four.

Homeless Child works together with the third partner, AHMF, by offering methods of birth control, vocational courses and microcredit to very poor women. This in itself is an indirect and positive contribution to the fight against the growing number of street children.

As there are no financial reserves for expansion or large projects in 2011, support is mainly being focused upon helping to bear Proniño’s operational costs and to a significantly lesser extent those of Hogar Suyapa.

The prospects for 2012 and 2013

The main responsibility of the foundation in Honduras is to help further improve the care offered by Proniño and the creation of the best possible ladder towards an independent existence for the young people housed there. Since 2010, three vocational courses have contributed to a large extent to the creation of a worthwhile future for the young people leaving the programme. Even so, a transitional phase is as yet still lacking, such as a “house for supervised independent living”, meaning that the step from shelter to independence is still greater than we would like it to be.

At the moment, Proniño provides shelter for about eighty children and young people and, with the present infrastructure, could increase its capacity to 100 if the operational budget permits. The expansion of this programme with more infrastructure is therefore not a priority.

In 2007, the foundation played a significant role in the building of the second storey of the Hogar Suyapa relief centre. This has led to an increase in capacity from 25 to 60 children. At the moment, 45 children are living in this house and expansion of the capacity is not yet an issue. The foundation contributes approximately 3% to the operational costs of Hogar Suyapa and is therefore one of the smaller contributors. If contributions from the foundation permit it in the future, we will strive to increase this percentage to about 10 or 15%.

Through our partner AHMF, 200 women are meanwhile participating in the programme offering methods of birth control, 168 have taken part in one or more vocational courses and about forty generate income from micro-businesses.

We intend to extend the collaboration with AHMF to larger groups of women, especially in the field of microcredit and methods of birth control.

Outlook for the future

The foundation is endeavouring to start up a relief centre for neglected girls up to the age of 12 (at the moment of admission). This project can only be implemented when there are sufficient financial means to guarantee in the long term commitments that have already been undertaken. We estimate a budget of 150.000 Euros for the building of a relief centre and a monthly amount of 200 Euros for each girl in the centre.

In time it will be important to create a division between girls and boys, because experience has shown that it is undesirable to have large groups of them living together under one roof when they reach puberty. Seeing that the oldest girls will only reach the age of nine at the end of 2011, this project will be implemented in 2014 or 2015.

If Pronino’s financial means permit, then it would be desirable to expand the programme in the long term or to duplicate it in the same region, seeing that two similar centers in the neighboring large city of San Pedro Sula have had to close in recent years, due to a lack of money. The need for relief centers for street children in the region is painfully high.

As Honduran education has left a lot to be desired for many years and private education is very expensive, providing our own education in the future could lead to the possibility of offering high quality training. Both Hogar Suyapa and Proniño provide internal education but only to the very lowest groups. Similar organizations that have existed for a longer period of time have sometimes successfully set up private schools where their own children are provided with free education, paid for by fee-paying external pupils.