OUR CORE AND FOUNDATION

Läkarmissionen started in 1958 supporting a mission hospital in South Africa. Today, we are an international aid organisation, active in more around 35 countries on four continents, with an annual budget of more than SEK 100 million.

AT THE CORE: CHANGING LIVES

The goal of our organisation and our development aid efforts is to create opportunities for vulnerable individuals that enhance their life quality and empower them to create a better future. Therefore, the foundation for our development programmes is to provide support that underpins the innate strength of individuals to escape their own poverty.

In practise, we want to transform the living conditions of vulnerable individuals in an enduring way, and to boost their dignity as well as their ability to impact their own lives. This is expressed through aid efforts in our priority areas: social care, training & education and self-sufficiency. We also work actively with humanitarian aid.

LÄKARMISSIONEN’S DEVELOPMENT CHAIN

Some of our aid projects focus on one of the priority areas, but an increasing part of our portfolio are so-called integrated projects – projects where we combine different measures in order to better help people on the path from dependency to independence. We call this transfer Läkarmissionen’s development chain, pictured below together with our core values.

Briefly described, we start with social care to see to the basic needs of the people involved, such as water and shelter. The next step is education and training, to lay the foundation for creating a better future. If you can’t read or do simple math, it is very hard to find a job or start a business. The final step is self-sufficiency, which can be obtained through vocational training and microloans from self-help groups and savings groups.

PRIORITY AREAS

Social Care:
Our guiding concept is to give people all the resources they need to be able to live a good life. This can, for example, involve the search for a family that welcomes orphaned children, release slave children or give girls an opportunity to escape genital mutilation.

Training & Education:
We heavily invest in training. The proposal is to adapt the learning to the objective: to support children so that they are able to study; to give young people vocational training that can lead to employability or allow an adult to understand what is written in the contract he signs. Through education, we seek to open opportunities for people to influence their own future.

Self-Sufficiency:
Through the formation of small savings groups and the availability of micro-loans, people are empowered to manage their own business. Together with good training, micro-loans are a great way to move people from dependence to independence. Läkarmissionen’s work in many different ways allows people to self-sufficiency all over the world.