Dear PM-Family,
Dear FitLiners,
Dear everyone,
Christmas and the upcoming New Year are usually the time to reflect and look back at the past, but also make plans for the future. Take a moment to think about what happened this year, and about all the challenges you overcame. It took effort, energy, and commitment, but it gave you a sense of pride and achievement. Think about this feeling, really focus on it. Keep it in mind for the reminder of what you’re about to read…
Many of you know how our charity concept here at PM-International works: with each product purchased, our charity foundation PM We Care is enabled to help children all over the world.
Every single purchase contributes to charity.
Together with our partner World Vision, we are currently supporting 5 Regional Development projects with more than 4.000 sponsored children. There it is again… the feeling of accomplishment, pride, and maybe a little smile…
Think about the implications of what we just shared. YOU are a major contributor to changing the life of 4.000 children. YOU are making this happen. For this, we thank you so much. More than words can ever express! YOU ARE AMAZING!
Overall, with your help, we donated more than 1.5 million Euros to World Vision. This is an outstanding achievement.
This all sounds great. But what does it mean?
It might be very abstract to grasp the impact of what you are doing for those children, so allow us to take you on a journey all over the planet to show you where EXACTLY you helped to change so many lives to the better.
WASH Project in Ghana
Most families in Ghana rely on agriculture and many children have to travel vast distances to fetch water every day. Many of them miss school a lot because of this. We support World Vision’s efforts to improve the living conditions in remote villages and organize reading camps, support home schooling, as well as educate about the importance of hygiene practices.
In 2021, we provided the Subin Anglican and the Amobaka D/A in Diaso with two new hygiene facilities. Those replaced the old, snake infested facilities which were unsafe to use for the children. In total, more than 900 children directly benefited from this. Additionally, new facility maintenance plans were introduced to ensure the longevity and sustainability of this project. During the year, there were many hygiene trainings in those schools, teaching the children how to avoid the spread of the pandemic.
With your help, these children can enjoy school more safely. For our next stories, we have to travel almost 10.000 kilometers to South America.
Guatemala
After 36 years of civil war, Guatemala is struggling to rebuild. The country cannot provide basic healthcare services to all citizens and children suffer most from this. We work to promote vaccinations for toddlers and systematic check-ups for children under the age of seven to fight chronic malnutrition.
This is Saúl Gabriel. Saúl is 11 years old and one of our sponsored children from Guatemala. He is in fourth grade, loves soccer, and plans to become a veterinarian because it saddens him to see the animals out on the streets. Due to the pandemic, Saúl had to be home-schooled a lot and did not see his friends for long periods of times. Together with World Vision, we set up safe activities, vacation schools, and birthday celebrations for Saúl and the other children in his community. This allows his parents to minimize their expenses and it motivates him to study for his personal and family improvement. Saúl send us a message to give to you all: “Thank you, World Vision and PM-International, for promoting change in my life and my community!”
Miriam Victoria is one out of ten children. Her family works in agriculture, cultivating coffee and corn. Miriam currently visits the seventh grade, but due to the pandemic she is not allowed to go to school more than two days a week. With the support of World Vision and PM We Care, Miriam received home-schooling materials and now she is really excited to continue studying. She enjoys mathematics and hopes to graduate to serve her community and other families, especially their children. She knows: “I will have many more opportunities in life due to this”.
Remember that feeling we talked about? Giving opportunities and bringing real change to the lives of those children really brings it back, doesn’t it? 😉
Next, our journey takes us to Africa.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe lies in a very hot and dry climate zone which causes many droughts and failed harvests. Many children abort school without any degree and their parents do not grasp how important early childhood education and schools are for the future of their children. Together with our partner World Vision, we supply schools with interesting learning materials, advanced trainings for teachers, and setting up school committees. Extensive campaigns to create awareness for vaccination as well as the creation and repair of wells ensure a drastic decrease of the child mortality rate.
In Tshitshi Madabe, we helped the community to build a new well this year. 95 households can now happily access safe and clean water from the tapes, thanks to PM-International and World Vision. These families are no longer walking long distances to fetch water from another village. “We used to collect water from an open well which is far away from our homesteads. The water well was also overwhelmed by the high number of users and sometimes you would be forced to stand in the queue for more than 30 minutes waiting for your turn to come. My family now walks 100 metres to collect water from the tape. This has freed more time for us to do other necessary household chores such as cleaning and cooking”, says Sithabisile, a local child. Access to adequate water in the village has enabled some of the families to set up back yard gardens where they now enjoy access to fresh vegetables such as tomatoes and green leafy vegetables. Sithabisile went on to say, “Our nutritional status has improved as we have established a small nutrition garden in the backyard where we grow and harvest fresh vegetables. Access to adequate and clean water in the community is indeed a blessing and a gift for life that we have received.”
The whole community says: THANK YOU!
Sierra Leone
Torn apart by decades of an extremely destructive war, Sierra Leone is struggling to escape the grasp of chaos, destruction, and death. The most recent outbreak of Ebola took the lives of more than 70% of infected people. Almost absent children’s rights and an under-5-year mortality rate of over 80% are serious issues that need to be addressed.
Together with World Vision, we strengthen children’s rights by educating parents and the public about child protection. Additionally, we teach children and their families how to avoid diseases and the importance of hygiene. Together with the local communities, we help to build wells and plant vitamin rich vegetables to ensure a healthy nutrition for children.
In 2021, we additionally supported local primary schools with learning materials, exercise books, pens and crayons to bring more joy to their education process. Want to hear what they said about this in a letter to all of us? 😉
“These gifts from the PM-Family were received with great joy from the children and their parents, as it was a difficult moment for them to afford these materials when schools have just resumed. The gifts also improved school attendance, which is wonderful. Thank you so much!”
Supporting 110,000 people in Cambodia and Bangladesh
In 2022, we will take over the sponsorship of two regional development projects in Cambodia and Bangladesh. We are the only corporate sponsor of World Vision, which sponsors regional development projects in their entirety. These long-term Area Programs, lasting approximately 15 years, are implemented in collaboration with locals. Cambodia has one the fastest growing economies in Asia, but the country is still a long way away from adequately protecting the rights of children. The state is marked by a strong disparity between urban and rural areas, and the effects of poverty touch children most of all. Together with World Vision, we inform parents about the value of education and support schools throughout the country. We also invest in the water supply infrastructure and support the health centres by consolidating with the local authorities.
Bangladesh is the eight-most populous country in the world, more than 60 million children live there. Half of them grow up in the most abject poverty and are forced to work very early on. We help World Vision to achieve well-being and build a brighter future for vulnerable children in Bangladesh by tackling causes and addressing effects of poverty, inequalities and injustices.
We support these development projects by sponsoring more than 1,000 children. On-site development measures will focus on access to drinking water, sanitation facilities and hygiene, as well as nutrition trainings. Approximately 110,000 local people will benefit from these programs. Let that sink in for a moment. 😉
India
There are more than 470 million children in India under the age of 18, almost 30% of them even under the age of 6. A large part of them lives in rural areas and have limited or no access to fundamental needs such as education, healthcare, nutrition, and protection. We support families in boosting their income by holding seminars about agricultural methods, strengthen child protection by offering summer camps and clubs, and teach pregnant women as well as mothers about disease prevention and the importance of regular health check-ups.
Children from our area program live their life with limited resources, as high number of parents are daily wagers and their focus always is to provide food and shelter. Many of them have great talents like drawing, art and craft, writing skill, express their thought through painting and colouring along with the regular study patterns which we are supporting with drawing materials. This will be helpful to the children to encourage and show that they are valued. It will also be very helpful to parents to see and understand the talent and capacity of their children to complete their early education.
YOU helped to provide for a better future and smile on their faces.
Think about the feeling we mentioned throughout this text. Focus on it.
And there is only one more thing we can say: THANK YOU!
Thank you for your work, dedication, and commitment to enable us to do all these great things. You changed the lives of thousands of children, their families, and communities all over the world.
Be proud of what you achieved. And keep in mind: We will achieve even more in the year to come. Together we can make this happen.
Click here if you want to learn more about our charity cooperation with World Vision.