Terre des hommes (Tdh) was founded in 1960 and is the leading Swiss organisation for children’s aid.
Terre des hommes Foundation has been active in Ukraine continuously since 2015, contributing to the improvement of the child protection system and to the reform of social assistance. We also facilitate the participation of children in the development of their communities.
Each year, thousands of children and parents benefit from the projects that Tdh implements in Ukraine.
In Ukraine, the Tdh Foundation is active in two areas of intervention:
- Protection and promotion of children’s rights by strengthening the protection system. We mobilize communities to prevent risk situations and we collaborate with social workers, teachers and other professionals to protect children. We seek to increase children’s and youth’s resilience; we help them participate in making decisions that concern them. We invest in education, health, social services and infrastructure in order to improve life of disadvantaged children in Ukraine.
- Supporting children affected by migration. Migration negatively affects children’s life in many ways: from parents who leave the country to children who migrate by themselves or with their family. In this field, our priorities are preventing children’s and youth’s unsafe migration, and making sure that children already affected by migration have access to their fundamental rights.
Terre des hommes (Tdh) is the leading Swiss organisation for children’s aid. Through our health, protection and emergency relief programmes, we provide assistance to over four million children and their families in around 40 countries each year.
We aspire to a world in which the rights of children, as defined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, are always respected. A world in which children can thrive in safe environments and become the agents of change they wish to see in their lives.
Terre des hommes, founded in 1960, is an independent, neutral and impartial Swiss organisation committed to bringing meaningful and lasting change to the lives of children and youth, especially to those most exposed to risks. We strive to improve their well-being and ensure the effective application of their rights as defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other relevant human rights instruments. To make a difference, we focus on the areas of maternal and child health, children and youth migration, and access to justice. We aim to empower children and youth through active participation. We advocate for the respect of children’s rights, supporting them in voicing their needs and interests. We work in fragile and conflict-affected settings, as well as in stable environments.
- We act in the best interests of the child, based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other relevant human rights instruments;
- We promote and enhance child, youth, family and community participation and empowerment;
- We foster local partners’ ownership of projects and actions, reinforce local systems to support and enable various national and local stakeholders to provide expertise and best practices;
- We trust and build on the capacities of stakeholders and communities as primary responders and agents of change;
- We implement humanitarian, development and peacebuilding activities;
- We integrate constant learning, improvement, collaboration and knowledge sharing;
- We strive for innovation and sustainability in all our actions and programmes;
- We are accountable and transparent to beneficiaries, partners, donors and to ourselves;
- We partner with other organisations to advocate for the respect of children’s rights.
The list of most recent projects on Child Protection, including projects on migration:
“Ukraine Joint Response” (3 years, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs), “Aflatoun” (1 year, Dorcas), “Provision of psycho-social services for adolescents, youth, parents and educators in settlements near the contact line in Luhansk and Donetsk regions” (2 years, UNICEF and European Union), “Digital fabrication for vocational education” (1 year, USAID project “Economic Support for Eastern Ukraine”), “Young Citizens” (1 year, USAID project “Democratic Governance East Activity”), “Psychosocial well-being and an inclusive environment for children in Eastern Ukraine” (1 year, UNICEF), “CASTLE - Children left behind by labour migration: supporting Moldovan and Ukrainian transnational families in the EU” (2 years, European Commission), “ACTIV - Act against violence” (3 years, Active Citizens Fund Romania, funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants 2014 - 2021), “Youth entrepreneurship” (3 years, Federation Vaudoise Cooperation – FEDEVACO, Switzerland), SMILE - Support for children and their families during Migration and Integration in new Local Environments (1 year, Oak Foundation and the Crisis and Support Center of the Ministry for Europe), Support for the integration of displaced educational institutions from the East of Ukraine into the new environment and implementation of psychosocial support approaches in the educational process (3 months, GIZ).
