DACHSER expands its social commitment with terre des hommes

Children’s rights, schooling, vocational training, protection of natural resources:

“Logistics brings people, markets, and production closer together. As a global company, it is therefore incumbent on us to strongly advocate for the living conditions of those who don’t benefit equally from globalization,” explains Bernhard Simon, CEO of DACHSER. “It takes patience and a long-term outlook to make a sustained impact. That’s why we continue to support the work of local project partners of terre des hommes in India while at the same time setting our sights on other countries and continents as well.”

From education to sustainability

The results of projects over the last decade show that there has been a lasting improvement in living conditions for children and teenagers in 136 villages within the impoverished North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh:

• Nearly 17,000 children and women were educated about their rights and given assistance to actively demand them in democratic Indian society.
• Over 15,300 children took advantage of basic educational opportunities. Around 60 percent subsequently attended state-run or private schools. The number of dropouts fell by 40 percent.
• Around 4,700 children—mostly girls—attended vocational training centers and took computer or handicraft courses.
• Children and teenagers planted over 14,200 trees in the project locations; 117 composting units and 112 biogas systems were installed; 100 families received solar-powered lamps to enable children to study at night.
• 97 schools were given special tanks for drinking water and sanitary facilities.

DACHSER is currently supporting the following terre des hommes projects on three continents:

India, Nepal:

In Uttar Pradesh, DACHSER and the local partner organizations of terre des hommes plan to continue their successful work until at least 2020. This includes education on human rights and children’s rights, promoting youth and women’s organizations, schooling and training, and both preserving and expanding natural resources in 50 villages. A new project will be dedicated to improving living conditions of the Musahar, an Indian ethnic group in the region bordering Nepal that suffers from extreme discrimination and economic difficulty.

Access to clean water, sanitary facilities, education, and stronger women’s rights are the focus of the third project, which will benefit three villages in Nepal. Finally, terre des hommes will help young people in Mangolpuri, one of the largest slums in New Delhi, to return to school or become professionally qualified via eLearning modules.

Brazil, Namibia

From 2015 until at least 2017, DACHSER will support the work of the Children’s Rights Center of Limeira, a part of the metropolitan region of Campinas in the state of São Paul (Brazil). Its work focuses on providing a way out of a life of crime and drug addiction for children and teenagers. To achieve this, the center provides both direct educational work in schools and alternative after-school programs as well as seminars in children’s rights for representatives of civil society stakeholders and government officials.

In Namibia, terre des hommes and DACHSER are working on a joint project ending in 2017 to improve future opportunities for the children of the San, also known as Bushmen. As the oldest ethnic group in southern Africa, they mostly live in great poverty around enormous farms or in shantytowns at the edge of small cities. The focus of the project work is early development and continuous support for regular elementary school attendance. 

Vocational training is also provided, especially to girls in order to prepare them for work in hotels and lodges, but also to provide them with handicraft skills.