Enfants du Mekong (EDM) is a French non-profit organization offering support to extremely poor children and families who live in South East Asia. EDM aims at educating, training and following children and youth in order to allow them to improve their living conditions and to facilitate their intellectual, emotional and psychological development. Its intervention is focused on seven countries: Vietnam, Thailand, Lao, Myanmar, Cambodia, China and Philippines. The support is based on individual sponsoring dedicated to help the children and youth to cover education expenses. EDM also proposes a collective sponsoring plan designed to support a school, a family unit, or a group of children. In terms of implementation, EDM allocates the sponsoring funds to different programs run by its local representatives. As of today, there is a total of 60,000 children under support from EDM and over 21,000 being sponsored by the organization.
Beginning of April, HOST-NGO formulated a partnership proposal to EDM in order to reinforce the support offered at the SDC. Following our proposition, Marie, the local coordinator for Negros area, came to visit the SDC project in Bacolod City. Marie was able to meet with our team as well as SDC's local team, in particular with Paolo, one of the two social workers in charge of the individual follow-up of the children in conflict with the law.
We also discussed about details related to the possibility of setting-up individual and collective sponsoring schemes. Two types of support have been requested so far to EDM: a school sponsorship for children and youth exiting SDC and reintegrating their families, and a collective sponsorship dedicated to fund the educational and social activities within the SDC. It seems that the first proposition would be the easiest to implement according to the current strategy of EDM. However, the local coordinator of EDM still needs to report on her on-field visit to her managers, prior to reaching any concrete agreement. We are all hoping that the partnership comes to a reality within the end of the year!
Beginning of April, HOST-NGO formulated a partnership proposal to EDM in order to reinforce the support offered at the SDC. Following our proposition, Marie, the local coordinator for Negros area, came to visit the SDC project in Bacolod City. Marie was able to meet with our team as well as SDC's local team, in particular with Paolo, one of the two social workers in charge of the individual follow-up of the children in conflict with the law.
We also discussed about details related to the possibility of setting-up individual and collective sponsoring schemes. Two types of support have been requested so far to EDM: a school sponsorship for children and youth exiting SDC and reintegrating their families, and a collective sponsorship dedicated to fund the educational and social activities within the SDC. It seems that the first proposition would be the easiest to implement according to the current strategy of EDM. However, the local coordinator of EDM still needs to report on her on-field visit to her managers, prior to reaching any concrete agreement. We are all hoping that the partnership comes to a reality within the end of the year!
