Building tomorrow starts today
Choose your topic and read more about how we take care about our employees, their families and communities as well as how PATRIZIA supports children worldwide:
PATRIZIA Emergency Fund
In response to the current crisis, we have created an emergency fund to enable our children’s centres worldwide to continue their work.
In 2020, PATRIZIA has already supported the PATRIZIA Foundation (PCF) with more than €1.3 million. Together with the CORONA FUND EDUCATION HEALTHCARE, the PCF will ensure onsite infrastructure is maintained. The PCF is helping the centres stay viable and keep the children engaged with their education while social distancing measures are in place.
Although the CORONA FUND EDUCATION HEALTHCARE is currently responding to urgent short term need only – for example, with centres closed many children are missing their main meal of the day – it also has specific longer-term possibilities.
These include improving hygiene to minimise the impact of future epidemics, as well as promoting increased e-learning through equipment and infrastructure.
Emergency Fund to help during the crisis
Rwanda is one of the smallest countries in East Africa but, with 12 million inhabitants, one of the most densely populated. Almost 40% of the population still lives below the official poverty line. The economic consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic have fallen heavily on the poorest, particularly the young.
Theophilé Rutabana, the school manager of the PATRIZIA Vocational Training Center in Ntarama, is using his organisational experience to coordinate fund-raising efforts so townspeople support their struggling neighbours to the best of their abilities.
The Corona Fund Education Healthcare of the PATRIZIA Foundation is helping to support the training center and our other locations worldwide. Please help us in our efforts.
Access to education is key in this worldwide crisis
PATRIZIA gives children access to education and heath to live a better life through the PATRIZIA foundation. For more than 21 years managing the PATRIZIA Foundation has helped 230.000 children to life a better, healthier life with more opportunity. Currently, almost 90% of schools around the world are closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The PATRIZIA Foundation is working closely together with their partner organisations on the ground running 18 Children Centers in Afrika, South America, Asia and Europe to manage the situation and provide information how children and their families can take preventive measures and avoid an infection with the coronavirus.
Part of this initiative is building an information platform for all partner organisation to connect, share experience and learn from each other to prevent the spreading of the Covid-19 virus in developing countries which are even more at risk. The PATRIZA Foundation remains committed to help its partners to support children and young people now and in the future so they can build trust and emerge even stronger from the crisis.
Helping our communities stay safe
Our PATRIZIA Foundation Children Center contribute to make best out of the crisis.
Help right next door
Debbie is a teacher at the PATRIZIA School Buyamba in Uganda. She teaches English and Science to primary school students. Currently, as the school is closed, she is in lockdown at home.
Debbie, how are people in your community coping with the situation?
We have been lockdown for a few weeks and everybody is at home now. A lot of people in my community people are slowly running out of supplies and need food – especially the elderly in the village. Everyone is looking around to see who could need help, not only family members. So many people are donating food to other people, not in a big way, but they look around and care for those living next door.
How do you help?
When I go shopping, I think of my older neighbours and take an additional kilo of sugar or cornmeal with me to give to them. Often when I am cooking for my family, I will also carry an additional plate to our older neighbour. We like to eat matoke in our area - that is plantains, which can be cooked in a thousand different ways. With matoke everybody has a full stomach, and it is healthy and tastes incredibly good.
Thank you, Debbie, TCASH – Take Care and Stay Healthy!
Notes to cope with the fear
Peter Nshimyumukizais a former student from the PATRIZIA Vocational Training Ntarama in Rwanda. He settled down with his family in the region and works usually as a qualified worker on construction sites. He also built his family house by himself. He has two children, Jean Simeon and Jean Yves.
Peter, how is your family coping with the situation?
My children are aged three and five years old. They do not fully understand the situation. Currently they are not allowed to play with other children, as they are used to. They also do not go to school and kindergarten. Again and again, every time something new about corona, they ask about it. They have many questions. They are also a bit afraid that mum or dad might get sick.
How do you help?
I cannot explain to my children what is really going on in the world, but I understand their fear and I want to take it away. That is why I have taught them prayers that they recite over and over when they feel a little bit of fear. The boys came up with the idea of sharing the prayers with other children, so we write them on slips of paper and leave them outside their friends' doors whenever we go shopping.
Thank you, Peter, TCASH – Take Care and Stay Healthy!
Father’s shelter
Father Jude is the parish priest in Buymaba in Uganda. He is also the priest of our project partner at the PATRIZIA School in the village. He not only takes care of the spiritual well-being of the school. Together with the principal, Madame Sylvia, he helps run the school. The PATRIZIA School in Buyamba is his heart and soul.
Father Jude, how are the people in your community coping with the situation?
Food has become very expensive, as is usual in times of crisis, so people are eating all their supplies. People are more afraid now of hunger than coronavirus. Also, the families will not be able to pay the school fees either. As a school we have to be prepared for this. What is positive about such a crisis is that the people in the village stick together and help each other more than usual.
How do you help?
I am a priest of the parish, so my job is to help but I cannot help everyone. I have a few families where I know that I must take care of them because they cannot do it themselves. But most of the help I give is to the children who come to me. There are some who come every day or stay with me because their parents have smaller children for whom they can hardly care. So, the older children stay with me to survive. One of them finished primary school last year, two of them are in secondary school, some of them just come for lunch because they would not get it at home. So that's my help and that's a given and no matter if the crisis is called corona or poverty.
Thank you, Father Jude, TCASH – Take Care and Stay Healthy!
Food for the poor
Théophile Rutabana is Managing Director at the PATRIZIA Vocational Training Ntarama in Rwanda.
Théophile, how are the people in your community coping with the situation?
The situation is precarious. Many people have no jobs and we don't know how long the crisis will last. People in my village collect money to help those who cannot afford to buy food during the lockdown. Every donor gives a small amount of money, but we appreciate every donation. Everyone who can afford it is willing to help. This fosters a good feeling of community.
How do you help?
Schools were told to provide help. As Managing Director of a public school, I decided to offer professional help with the charity work. I was involved in fundraising and helping the poorest in the community. We collected a lot of donations and organised help for people in our village. The needy families ended up with 5 kilos of corn and 5 kilos of beans. This required many donations and was a great success.
Thank you, Théophile, TCASH – Take Care and Stay Healthy!
Happy to help
Together with partner organisation Supertecture, the PATRIZIA Children Foundation is continuing to build and develop the PATRIZIA School Dhoksan in Nepal. Karo and Matthew are part of Supertecture, a non-profit organisation that encourages architects from around the world to plan and build social projects in developing countries. When offered flights home after the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, the pair declined and decided to stay and continue their work.
Karo and Matthew, how do the people in your community cope with the situation?
Here in Nepal we do not have as many infections as in neighboring countries, like China and India, but the lockdown is restricting public life. People cannot work, therefore have no income. Also, school and social activities have been suspended. We live next door to Dhoksan’s vacant primary school and are still surprised by the silence as no pupils are coming to the top of the mountain anymore. Unlike in our home countries of Germany and Australia, the children are not able to continue schooling from home because they simply do not have any laptops to receive and do their homework on. People are supporting each other but we do not know how much longer the village can stand the lockdown economically, especially as the lockdown is being prolonged every week.
How do you help?
Together with the PATRIZIA Children Foundation, we constructed the village’s primary school, now we are continuing to support the community with further social architecture. After governments from all over the world evacuated their people travelling in Nepal, we are some of the last foreigners remaining in the country. Our local community in Dhoksan admires our willingness to stay here in Nepal. With our construction site, we try to secure jobs for villagers. Doing this, we must ensure that the work will not cause any risks of infection for the people involved. This is the first crisis our generation has experienced, and we are happy to contribute to improving the situation. Especially because we can contribute something to those people who are much more harshly affected from the overall consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic than people in our home countries.
Thank you, Karo and Matthew – Take Care and Stay Healthy!