25 Years of the Atos Origin Derde Wereldfonds (Third World Fund)
In 2007 the Derde Wereldfonds (Third World Fund) celebrated its 25th anniversary. The fund is committed to supporting people in third-world countries and helping them to improve their lives. It mainly supports educational and health projects, especially for children, and recent projects have included things such as building a school in Burkina Faso, building a water pump installation in Burkina Faso, building a village centre in Sudan, buying a school bus in Cambodia and building a hospital in the Dominican Republic.
It was originally set up when part of the company in the Netherlands was known as BSO (Buro Voor Systeemontwikkeling). Tired of people complaining about money, two colleagues said that compared to many other people they were relatively well off, and so set about seeing how they could raise some money for others less fortunate in the Third World. The head of BSO at the time, Eckart Wintzen, liked the idea so much that the company agreed to double the money raised by the employees.
They started small, but after some time every year several organizations were financial supported with rather big donations. And today the Fund enables employees to contribute through their salaries and also to provide real practical help in their holidays or spare time.
At this moment there are about 1,100 contributors from within the Dutch company. The Fund is managed by a Board consisting of 7 Atos Origin employees and around 15 people help with the day to day activities. The Dutch Management Board is also supportive and helps the Fund to do their job.
In the last 25 years the Fund has spent about € 2,000,000 on all kind of projects in South America, Africa and Asia. It has supported the building or renovation of schools, hospitals, houses and farms, as well as financing the digging of water wells and the starting up of chicken and goat farms. Every year they get about 50 requests for support but sadly the Fund cannot help all of them.
Over the last 5 years the Fund has also organized “building-projects”. This is where a group of some 20 – 30 colleagues at a time actually travel to a project that the Fund finances to help with the building or renovation. These trips have included supporting projects in the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Benin and Ethiopia, and for 2008 a trip is being prepared to Nepal.
More information can be found at: http://www.derdewereldfonds.nl/