What Would I Support If I Won the Lottery?
As founders, we very often get asked by donors and friends about our own preference when it comes to allocating funds to needy causes. For me personally, this is a rather easy and pragmatic question since I’m focused on long term sustainability and improvement. After all, our own lives are meant to trigger positive change and we don’t have unlimited time at hand to achieve this. Hence, my lottery win would preferably go towards creating a powerful group of responsible leaders and specialists. The reason for this is very simple: if we succeed in educating and nurturing positive change makers, then half the job is done. This group of young and promising individuals will help us to trigger positive change from the disadvantaged in society by becoming educators, law makers, health professionals and journalists; in short, they become the generation who challenges the current situation. And the current situation in our four countries needs to change in order to bring these societies forward and make them more just and fair. When Daniel and I started Child’s Dream more than 16 years ago, we agreed that our organisation should only be a ‘temporary’ intervention with the goal of achieving positive change for our beneficiaries. Even if ‘temporary’ in our case means 30 or 40 years, it has to be our long-term goal to have solved problems in our countries so that our efforts pay off, once and for all. OK, we have realised in the meantime that the problems at hand are slightly bigger than initially estimated; nevertheless, even after only 16 years of work, we see tremendous positive change So many lives were improved, inequality reduced, chances enhanced, hence successes celebrated. This keeps us going and strengthens our belief that creating responsible leaders and specialists remains of utmost importance, even if it’s sometimes an uphill battle to find funding for our students.
Don’t misunderstand us; all our interventions are important! That’s why we still run programmes ranging from granting access to basic education to improving health interventions and saving lives. But securing funding for our leadership programmes is much more difficult, so my lottery jackpot would mainly be allocated there.
Let’s stay a bit longer with the lottery business. Though I spend my money more wisely than at a lottery ticket booth, we hit the jackpot every single day by being able to rely on so many of our valued donors, friends and family members on a daily basis. Receiving your tremendous support, not just financially, but also morally, is the biggest recognition from all of you that one could wish for. And for this, we can only say, over and over again, THANK YOU ALL, from the bottom of our hearts!!!
Despite very challenging political and economic circumstances around the globe, 2019 was yet another record year for Child’s Dream. I might sound like a scratched record, but never before have we supported so many beneficiaries as in the past year. Never before have we implemented and run so many projects and programmes simultaneously and never before have we gotten such tremendous financial support as in 2019. Internally, we have further improved our processes and increased the quality of administration and programme delivery. Our team in the region worked relentlessly on improving the life situation of children, youth and entire communities and this deserves our utmost respect and appreciation. Here, Daniel and I are happy to hit the jackpot over and over again, having the most amazing and admirable Child’s Dream team at our side. You guys all ROCK and we are very much looking forward to tackling 2020 with full energy and with each and every one of you with us.
We wish all of you a great festive season, a happy and healthy New Year, and we look forward to being in touch with all of you in 2020. There is so much work awaiting us and only together we can succeed. Thank you for believing in us.
Alone we can do so little, together we can change the world!
MARC T. JENNI
CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR OPERATIONS
