Secours Catholique - Caritas France
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Mission Statement
Our purpose is to reduce poverty, bring hope and solidarity to poor communities or individuals in France and worldwide. We bring assistance to families, children and young people but also to the most vulnerable (homelesses, migrants, prisoners etc.). We fight against isolation, help them to find employement and we ensure their social reintegration. We provide emergency responses but also long term support, development aid and we work on the causes of poverty.
About This Cause
The action of Secours Catholique finds all its meaning in a global vision of poverty which aims at restoring the human person’s dignity and is part and parcel of sustainable development. To do so, six key principles guide this action, both in France and abroad: • Promoting the place and words of people living in situations of poverty • Making each person a main player of their own development • Joining forces with people living in situations of poverty • Acting for the development of the human person in all its aspects • Acting on the causes of poverty and exclusion • Arousing solidarity The actions of Secours Catholique are implemented by a network of local teams of volunteers integrated into the diocesan delegations and supported by the volunteers and employees of the national headquarters. On an international level, Secours Catholique acts in cooperation with its partners of the Caritas Internationalis network. Key figures of Secours Catholique: • 100 diocesan or departmental delegations • 4,000 local teams • 65,000 volunteers • 974 employees • 2,174 reception centres • 3 centres : Cité Saint-Pierre in Lourdes, Maison d’Abraham in Jerusalem, Cedre in Paris • 18 housing centres managed by the Association des Cités of Secours Catholique • 162 Caritas Internationalis partners • 600,000 donors Every year Secours Catholique encounters almost 700,000 situations of poverty and receives 1.6 million people (860,000 adults and 740,000 children). This daily mission led in the field by the local teams and delegations, with the support of national headquarters, pursues three major objectives which aim at exceeding the distribution action and limited aid: • Receiving to reply to the primary needs (supplying food and/or health care aid, proposing accommodation, establishing an exchange and a fraternal dialogue, etc) • Supporting to restore social ties (bringing together people in difficulty with an aim to reinsertion, encouraging personal initiatives and collective projects, establishing a mutual support helper-receiver of help relationship, etc) • Developing to strengthen solidarity (proposing long lasting solutions, establishing a follow-up over the long term, encouraging collective actions carried out by people in difficulty etc.) In France, Secours Catholique relies on its expertise and its strong presence in the field to respond to very varied forms of poverty. Family : The families received often do not have any financial means and are experiencing housing problems, unemployment, broken homes. Secours Catholique encourages access to health care, proposes food aid, family holidays, support with administrative procedures, practical help with looking for accommodation, etc. Childhood & youth : To support parents in their role as their children’s first teachers Secours Catholique offers educational support and a family holiday reception formula (AFV - Accueil familial de vacances). For raising young children’s awareness of charity, the Caritas clubs and the Réseau Jeunes Solidaires offer a suitable framework for encouraging their commitment. Homelessness : Secours Catholique endeavours to reply to the growing needs of caring for the most marginalised and isolated people: reception day and night, emergency accommodation, night rounds, discussion groups, etc. Employment - integration : Secours Catholique provides help to the unemployed or those on the minimum benefit who wish to set up their own companies by favouring recourse to loans (Fonds Solidaire pour les Initiatives – Solidarity Funds for Initiatives). It provides support to people on “minimum benefit integration contracts” in associations that it creates or supports. Prison : Prison teams, spread throughout the country, visit prisoners, keep up regular correspondence with them and provide support to their families. Secours Catholique is committed to defending the dignity and the rights of prisoners. Migrants : Being attentive to the needs of migrants is an essential Christian value. Secours Catholique supports foreigners in a precarious situation. Cedre (Centre d’entraide des demandeurs réfugiés et émigrants - Mutual aid centre for asylum seeker refugees and emigrants), a centre of Secours Catholique, provides support to asylum seekers in their procedures and offers activities that encourage integration (learning French, expression workshops, discussion, theatre groups and so on). Because charity has no frontiers, Secours Catholique / Caritas France has, from its very outset, carried out major actions on an international basis. As a member of Caritas Internationalis, every year at the request of local Caritas groups, it supports more than 500 international aid operations for underprivileged countries and populations. The emergency or development actions deployed in more than 80 countries are conducted by the headquarters’ International Action Department and by the delegations. To contribute to the financing of its projects Secours Catholique/Caritas France benefits from financial aid from the European Union within the framework of a partnership with Echo (European Community Humanitarian aid Office). Development actions : In collaboration with the local Caritas groups, Secours Catholique/Caritas France finances and supports development projects over the long term: access to education and schooling, strengthening of women’s social status, prevention and care for AIDS sufferers, defence and organisation of civil populations, promoting peace in war zones, suppor ting and assisting refugee camps, etc. International Emergencies : Secours Catholique/Caritas France supports emergency relief programmes associated with natural disasters, situations of conflict and displacement of populations. In liaison with local partners it supplies in situ, human means (trained volunteers) and materials (food, medicine, etc). The emergency relief programmes are elaborated with a view to sustainable development (e.g. Tsunami in South-East Asia, Kosovo, Haïti).