From 2002 to 2023 Atos Foundation (up to 2012 named: “Derde Wereld Fonds”) offers a helping hand, literally, in the construction or renovation of schools and hospitals in developing countries.
After 21 years and 14 projects we decided to stop; Malawi was the last, and a special, as the participants all were experienced, having attended at least 2 previous projects. We had several reasons to stop, but most important was Atos being not a large company anymore in the Netherlands, half of the organisation became Eviden and a decrease of participants, who are getting ‘grey’ also.
Sunday March 10, 2024, we organised a reunion for all participants from last 21 years. With this successful event, we terminated our activities formally. Remaining budget will be divided between the foundations which are still active.
The three main features of these kind of projects:
- The participants, a group of around 20 mainly Atos employees, travel for a period of two weeks to a developing country and help along with the construction of a health centre, school, or support other activities that are necessary, as volunteers. A local contractor leads the project, and the local workers will carry out the real (technical) work.
- These 20 participants each pay € 1500, – to cover the cost of travel and accommodation. Of that amount, an average of € 300 remains – as a contribution to the construction project. In addition to its own contribution, the participants are asked to raise money for the project, for example by collecting at sports events, own birthday money, contributions from family, friends and various organizations such as service clubs, churches or customers of Atos. In most cases, we were able to finance the entire project (€ 15 000, – € 33 000, -).
- Living and working with a completely different culture for two weeks will let participants to know the local people, their culture and country. Of course, the locals also get the chance to get to know some of our culture and customs. Besides the physical activities on the site, some participants organize a variety of activities with the children from the area, including teaching at school or organizing sports activities.