Cooperative ventures

In addition to relationships with organisation sponsors and team members, Net4kids is active within a number of cooperative ventures which make a special contribution to supporting our processes and increasing the organisation’s knowledge base in the field of child aid.

Wilde Ganzen
The most important cooperative venture for Net4kids is the partnership with Wilde Ganzen. A renowned and very experienced party, Wilde Ganzen supports Net4kids in project selection, contracting and monitoring. Starting in 2007, this partner will take on all contracting and monitoring tasks. In turn, Net4kids provides support for (all new forms of) fundraising and underlying (IT) infrastructure.

Change for Children
Net4kids is joining forces with four other Dutch aid organisations in Change for Children (www.changeforchildren.nl). Despite the many initiatives, 50% of the world’s children live below the poverty line, 12 million children die of disease each year, and millions more are victims of violence. Child aid programmes can be better and more effective. That is why International Child Support (ICS), KidsRights, Net4kids, Wilde Ganzen and the Zeister Zendingsgenootschap decided to cooperate under the name ‘Change for Children’ in order to help the most vulnerable children in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Change for Children is unique in its integrated, child-centred approach: Change for Children first examines the needs children have in a specific community, which can be safe water supplies, education, or protection of children's rights. Change for Children then approaches these issues in an integrated manner, while ensuing that local aid organisations are reinforced and stimulated, lessening their dependence on foreign aid.

Change for Children consists of both experienced, established organisations and groundbreaking, innovative ones which complement each other in terms of experience, knowledge and areas of interest: poverty combating, partner support, grassroots support initiatives and fundraising activities. Change for Children is also strengthened by a variety of (inter)national and local partner organisations who implement child aid projects. Three core partners are Aflatoun, Child Savings International and African Child Policy Forum. Together, these parties are capable of addressing the needs of children in extreme situations, those most vulnerable to poverty, exploitation, abuse and discrimination. Change for Children wants all boys and girls to have the chance to just be children. They must have the opportunity to develop into strong individuals in a safe living environment, enabling them to escape poverty. That is why Change for Children pays a great deal of attention to awareness about the rights of the child.

Programmes
The Change for Children approach has four cornerstones: programming children’s rights, civic development, partnerships and cooperation, and education as the foundation for social change. In all cases, local anchoring is sought out for initiatives, in both short and long term. Change for Children strives for the development and protection of children and training of local aid organisations through three programmes:

  • ‘Civic Driven Child Development’: development of children, on the levels of education, health, food security and financial security, is central to this programme. Local partners, such as school committees, children's clubs and women’s groups, are supported and stimulated in taking the development of their communities into their own hands through concrete actions, such as creating jobs for youths, building toilet facilities and providing HIV/AIDS education.
  • ‘Children and Protection’: the emphasis here is on protection and reintegration of vulnerable children and youths in extraordinary circumstances, such as children with handicaps or in conflict situations. Change for Children’s activities are again focused on strengthening local partners, but also encompass lobbying national governments, and signalling and combating abuse and exploitation of children.
  • ‘Jonge Ganzen+’: in this programme, local organisations in Asia, Africa and Latin-America are trained in local fundraising, so that they may become less dependent on foreign funds. They are also trained in strengthening grassroots support for aid programmes in the wealthier middle class in their area.

For Net4kids, Change for Children means that we share responsibility for the Jonge Ganzen+ programme with Wilde Ganzen and KidsRights. In this programme, Wilde Ganzen provides all the knowledge they have in the area of fundraising to local organisations in the South. Wilde Ganzen teaches them its fundraising methods, which leads to doubling of the donations collected by local groups, and shows them how RTV ads can be implemented. Net4kids demonstrates the use of internet marketing and how to approach businesses, while KidsRights trains the organisations in event marketing. Additionally, Net4kids shows local organisations how they can implement the same transparency in their donation and business model that works so well for Net4kids, and helps them set up the necessary structures.

International connections
Over the past year, we also made initial contact with foreign organisations with the same identity as Net4kids. In particular, Global Giving in the USA and GreaterGood SA from South Africa merit mention. Starting points for cooperation are sharing knowledge and experience and exchanging data on the infrastructural requirements. In the coming year we hope to expand our contacts and learn what organisations like these can mean to each other.