November 26, 2007. Success Stories

Session I

Project Teachers for Justice and Equality: Family Mediation through the Educational System for a Culture of Peace
Dr. Carmen Rosa Hernández Evangelista - Judge, Director of Department of Children, Adolescents and Family of the Supreme Court of Justice of Dominican Republic.

This story presented the experience of the Dominican Republic on handling and decreasing violence patterns by approaching children in schools. This innovative mechanism of training and educating children to solve conflicts peacefully through school mediation decreased the violence statistics. As a result, there are less sanctions and conflicts and the school body and parents become prepared to handle over self-regulatory tools to students, promoting open dialogue in a culture of peace.
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The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity
Ms. Aleksandra Owsiak - Wielka Orkiestra atecznej Pomocy - Poland

The foundation started with the purpose of acquiring one medical pediatric equipment. The support became so big that annually the foundation focuses on one pediatric specialty, and acquires state-of-the-art equipments for children, pushing the government to offer better health conditions, increasing the quality of living of children. The foundation created new standards of hospital attendance, holding hearing impairment screenings in almost 100% of newborns as well as oftalmologic tests.
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Session II

The Butterfly Hospitals Program
Ms. Magdalena Gwizdak - Lawyer - Communication without Barriers Foundation - Poland

The Butterfly Program aims at providing a better environment for children commited in hospitals. It renovates holspitals with cheerful colors and drawings, making the stay at the hospital less stressful for children and parents. The support from volunteers, donors, singers, hospital managers and artists, who give their authoral rights to improve the wellbeing of children. Today, the decoration of the hospital has became part of the graduation project of art students.
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Microcredit - An instrument of hope for social inclusion
Mme. Hélène Zographos-Meynaud - President of Ligue des Familles de Gréce et Familles Grecques expatriées.

The presentation begun addressing the European objectives set until 2010, specially those related to education. Mme. Zographos presented the concept of microcredit and different experiences throughout the world, establishing comparisons between Guatemala, India, Madagascar, Senegal, France and Italy in microcredit. She stresses the importance of those loans to kickstart small businesses and removing families from extreme poverty. Finally Mme. Zographos presented the difference between microcredit and microfinancing in NGOs and banking institutions, highlighting the importance of appropriate technical assistance and training.

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Session III

Goals for Life
Mrs. Ety Cristina Carneiro - Marketing Director of the Pequeno Príncipe Children's Hospital.

Mrs. Carneiro presented the Pequeno Príncipe Children's Hospital campaign supported by the famous Brazilian soccer player Pelé, who launched special series of minted coins in bronze, silver and gold in support of the Children's Hospital. This great support is a big fundraiser to allow continuous attendance of children from low-income families with a humanized, high quality and technology assistance.

An Ethical Practice Approach to the Family
Mr. Marc Piévic - General Delegate of the Ostad Elahi Foundation - Ethics and Human Solidarity - France

The Ostad Elahi Foundation is a multidisciplinary group composed by different actors of society. Mr. Piévic stressed that ethics must be considered beyond the legal and religous concepts. In family relations, ethics must be present in the relationship between the couple, in their everyday practice. Mr. Piévic also mentioned small reasons why people don't practice ethics in their everyday life. Finally,he stressed the importance of teaching ethics to children in small stories like fairytales.
Click here to download this paper. Click here to download the powerpoint presentation.

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Session IV

Implementing Local Health Systems in partnership with Local Authorities and NGOs
Dr. Deisi Kusztra - President of the World Family Organization
Mr. Sebastian Rodriguez - Architect - Development Partners

Dr. Deisi Kusztra and Mr. Sebastian Rodriguez presented the experience on implementing local health systems together with local authorities and NGOs. They presented the steps starting from negotiations on the concept and design of the projects, needs assesment, restructuring of the existing system, establishment of partnerships for development and financing, ajustments, execution planning, construction and training of the staff. They stressed that the political will was crucial in the full implementation of local health systems, and even if a project is extremely well prepared to fulfill its purpose, the lack of political will can undermine its success, affecting the families in need of those services.

Eradicating child malnutrition through innovative social business solution
Mr. Przemek Pohrybieniuk - Danone Corporation - Poland
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