Introduction
This year’s introduction to our annual report is not only a review of the past 12 months but also a reflection on our major achievements since the establishment of Child’s Dream in 2003. When Child’s Dream was born, the two of us did not even dare to dream of writing such an introduction more than 12 years later.
Let us start with one major event which impacted our work in 2015 and which will impact it for many years to come. An event which was completely out of reach only a few year ago: the recently held democratic elections in Myanmar. In November 2015, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won the first national election with a landslide victory since the opening of Myanmar in 2011, and her release from house arrest at the end of 2010. Whether this first and very important step towards long-lasting peace and democracy will be successful remains to be seen. However, we confidently look into Myanmar’s future. Whatever the long-term outcome, it will definitely affect our work in the country.
Our three focus groups have made significant progress last year, reaching out to thousands of children and youth.
In 2015, our health group has accepted 138 new cases into the Children’s Medial Fund (CMF), and successfully completed 175 treatments of young children from Myanmar and Laos. We accepted a staggering number of 1,360 little patients since the start of the CMF at the end of 2006, and we spent over 3.5 million US dollars on treatments so far.
In Basic Education, we built a record number of 40 schools in 2015 and 579 students were enrolled in our High School Scholarship Programme in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. And yes, also this focus group can very proudly look back at its achievement since 2003: we built 58 boarding houses, as well as 227 schools in our four supported countries since our humble start. These facilities are benefiting tens of thousands of children every single day.
In Higher Education as well progress and impact are clearly visible. Our post high school programmes to create community leaders in Myanmar already have 1,050 students enrolling in 2015 and our University Scholarship Programme currently counts 155 students and 106 alumni. For university studies alone, we have spent over 5 million US dollars since the start of the programme in 2006. One of our alumni won a seat in the provincial parliament of Shan State, Myanmar, representing the ruling party, NLD, which fills us with pride and hope.
In terms of fundraising, 2015 was another record year for us. Our two legal entities, Child’s Dream Foundation (Thailand) and Child’s Dream Association (Switzerland) for the first time raised over six million Swiss Francs. As our project work simultaneously grew in 2015, we still had to tap into our reserves due to a spending of roughly 6.3 million Swiss Francs. Thanks to our rigorous cost control during the past year, the administration ratio was at a mere 5.9% (6.8% in 2014).
Operationally, 2015 marked the year in which Daniel and Marc started to increasingly delegate more day-to-day decisions to a new, five member strong management team. This shift in operational responsibility is an important milestone in the long-term sustainability of Child’s Dream. We are pleased with the way the management committee took broader ownership of daily issues and thus collectively brought our organization another important development step forward . The two of us are not abandoning our ‘child’ in its 13th year of operation, but Child’s Dream has entered puberty and a potentially rebellious child requires more strategic guidance. To sustainably diminish/eradicate educational shortcomings in our four countries we do not only need more funding from donors, but also a stronger cooperation with educational authorities across our geographical area. Fundraising, representation and identifying the needs of our beneficiaries in the decade to come are of strategic importance to our work and are, therefore, our main responsibilities going forward.
We are proud of what all of us at Child’ Dream have achieved. Our impact is steadily growing and positively influences more and more children and youth. Their lives are sustainably improved day by day and access to equal opportunities is enhanced.
All of this would not have been possible without the very generous and outstanding support from all of our donors, friends and families. We feel lucky that support is given to us in all sizes and in various ways. We want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts. You are the fuel needed to keep the Child’s Dream engine going strongly.
Many, many thanks!