Our Aim and Policy
The aim of Foundation Het Bosje (Stichting Het Bosje) is to support projects and activities for underprivileged children in developing countries.
The Foundation arose from the “Sint-Luciagesticht” in Rotterdam, an institution founded in 1866. The income from the sale of buildings in 1983 were put in the bank and proceeds are used to finance those projects whereby we can contribute to the development of the approach and implementation. In 1985 Foundation Het Bosje started with international support to the nursery school of Sister Tarcisius in the village called Sengerema, in Tanzania. In the years that followed, financial support was given to various projects in Tanzania and Ghana, and later also in Uganda, Brazil, Armenia and Nepal. The projects range from the construction of primary schools, secondary schools, hostels for pupils and multifunctional buildings, to financial support for surgery of children with congenital anomalies, setting up community development and primary health care projects and occasionally for individual training.
The members of the board have long and positive experience with a wide variety of projects for children in low-income countries. On this basis, the board chooses to continue the current policy of support for projects for those children in its policy plan 2021-2025. We do this by working together with reliable local partners and looking for sufficient local support and oversight capacity. Furthermore, the board of Foundation Het Bosje wants to contribute as much as possible to the design and implementation of a project through its involvement.
Our policy means that we:
- make a distinction between long-term projects and short-term projects, for example to explore possible further cooperation.
- enable occasional support for the development of individuals, preferably within one of the current or previously supported projects.
- pay particular attention in our projects to monitoring the effects, in order to gain an impression of the effectiveness of our contribution.
We will continue the constructive and long-term cooperation with the current three local organizations in Asia (Armenia and Nepal) and Africa (Uganda). In view of the amount that we can spend per year, we aim for the near future at 2 or 3 longer-term projects with an exit strategy, in order to limit fragmentation of our efforts.
With new applications within this long-term collaboration, we look at the desirability and options for applying more focus. We do this by making proposals on our own initiative, especially in response to matters that strike us during visits to those projects. Support may include equipment, means of transport, educational materials for schools, facilities for clean drinking water or (contributions to studies for the improvement of) healthy indoor air at cooking places in schools and in home situations.
Our ability to provide support depends on available funds that arise from the invested capital of the foundation. This means that we let the expenditure for projects depend on the actual income from this basic capital.
Main Current Projects
Uganda Rural Development and Training (URDT), Kibaale District, Uganda
Foundation Het Bosje has been involved in various projects of URDT in Kagadi, Kibaale District, Uganda (www.urdt.net), since 2002 supporting primary and secondary school education for underprivileged girls through construction of hostels. In this way they are trained in a boarding school approach to become the future leaders of further developments in this rural area. An important part of the training is the implementation of development projects at home, in the places of origin of the students, in close collaboration with the parents (the two-generation approach). In the meantime, a number of young women have progressed to the African Rural University, another brainchild of the inspirational leader Mwalimu Musheshe, and after graduating and receiving their officially recognized diplomas, they have been placed in the rural sub-districts as advisers to the local governments. There they also support the roll out of the ongoing Pupil Managed School Farm Project by URDT.
Karuna Foundation, Nepal
Originated in the Netherlands, Karuna Foundation NL and Karuna Foundation Nepal focus through a comprehensive community development approach (Inspire2Care) on quality of life, equal rights and opportunities for children and adults with disabilities. In addition to this and importantly so, they pay attention to prevention of disabilities.
In 2016, we decided to initially support the programme in one village (Naya Bazar) in the Ilam District in the East of Nepal, with a view of supporting a second village. Later that same year representatives of Foundation Het Bosje visited two of the projects for orientation. After evaluation of the first reports and in consultation with the rest of the board, we decided in 2017 to also finance activities in a second village (Shree Antu).
At the end of 2019, a delegation from the board visited Nepal again to see with their own eyes that the project had been rolled out across Ilam District and that the local and central government had become very interested and involved. On the spot, a contribution was made to thinking about indicators to measure “prevention of disabilities”. Money was also pledged for 2020 to improve monitoring and evaluation throughout the district.
As the project was being rolled out throughout the whole Province One, Foundation Het Bosje was asked to support the development of a Karuna training institute to educate government and Karuna workers to run the project.
Alvan Tsarik, Gyumri, Armenia
Foundation Het Bosje contributed initially to the purchase and furnishing of a building for a kindergarten and community centre in the city of Gyumri. The building hosts a kindergarten that is meant to be an example for the region. The activities of Alvan Tsarik there mainly consist of offering a teaching method with an emphasis on more responsibility for the independent learning and thinking of pupils in the so-called pre-school age. This is in addition to ensuring adequate teaching materials and computers, as well as equipping classrooms with furniture. In the following years further financial support was provided to obtain an additional building and to make further improvements.
For a pictorial overview of each of these ongoing projects, please refer to the respective Dutch pages.
For more on previous projects, refer to the page Eerdere Projecten.