With the campaign #EuropeTogether #WeArePhilanthropy, DAFNE will be spotlighting one inspiring story per day here until October 1st when three winners will be announced in celebration of the European Day of Foundations and Donors. We want to take this opportunity to share our member’s stories over the next weeks and thank everyone for their participation.

Here is the next chapter with five more inspiring stories:

This year´s special nominee story: Teamwork for coastal resilience – Swiss Re Foundation

Local volunteers in Puerto Morelos, Mexico, enter the water as part of their training to examine damaged reefs. No threat to human well-being requires teamwork more than environmental degradation and climate risk. Both make disasters more likely and more destructive as they weaken natural and artificial defences. Here, a team of volunteers (including scientists, local divers and tourist guides) get trained to assess the status of coral reef health as they can dramatically reduce the force of hurricanes and tropical storms and mitigate erosion and flooding. For reefs to protect coasts, humans must protect reefs. With The Nature Conservancy, the Swiss Re Foundation is helping people on Mexico’s Caribbean coast preserve restore their reef for generations to come. (Photocredit: Christian Bobst Photography)

Off-premises engagement – Christoph Merian Foundation

Everyone is welcome in the alleyway kitchen on the Lindenberg in Basel, also on Sunday for brunch. Homeless people and people living in poverty get a free breakfast or a warm meal for 3 francs. It is also a friendly place with the opportunity for meetings and discussions; this is also a basic need that the team of the alleyway kitchen with its approximately 50 volunteers covers. When the restaurant had to be closed due to the Corona pandemic and the associated regulations, the alleyway kitchen was quickly converted and from then on functioned as a takeaway -to the great gratitude of the customers, as the picture shows. The Christoph Merian Foundation (CMS) has been supporting the institution in accordance with its foundation purpose „Alleviation of distress and misfortune“ since its beginnings 32 years ago, currently with a total contribution of CHF 410,000 for the period 2017-2020. (Photocredit:Kathrin Schulthess)

Making compassion visible: HelloMask – Gebert Rüf Foundation

HelloMask–a new transparent medical mask to improve the patients’ quality of life. The HelloMask concept actually originated from one member of our team, Diane B., when she was acting as a storyteller for hospitalized children, very often suffering from cancer. The goal was to develop a new type of transparent material having all the requirements for the certification of a new medical mask. This innovative material will be used to create a first-of-its-class fully transparent medical mask product. The concept issimple, but its technical implementation is a scientific challenge. To tackle it, two Swiss scientific institutions, EPFL(Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)and Empa(Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) joined their research forces,a few years ago. Financial support from foundations was essential in order to realizeit. (Photocredit: Alain Herzog/ EPFL)

Anniversary of home-basedcare client in Plovdiv Bulgaria – Medicor Foundation

There are many elderly people in Bulgaria who live in isolation. What they need is interaction withother people and social and medical care. Some of them suffer from serious illnesses requiring special care and find themselves in a difficult social and low-income situation. There is a lack of adequate complex medical and social care for elderly people in Bulgaria. Medicor Foundation supports elderly people with serious diseases who live in isolation with limited access to health and social services. Financial sustainability of the services provided by Caritas Sofia is a challenge and advocacy to close the gap in the health care system is actively supported. Here, the mobile home-based-care team of Caritas Sofia is celebrating the 90ies birthday of Zdravkawho lives alone in Plovdiv. (Photocredit: Caritas Sofia)

Hearing screenings made possible for 27’000 children in need – Hear the World Foundation

Two thirds of Cape Town’s inhabitants live in townships and have rarelyaccess to audiological care. Not only is the necessary technology far too expensive, there is also a lack of audiologists who could provide the necessary services.In order to close this gap, the Swiss Hear the World Foundation supports a local project run by the local hearX Foundation. The aim of it: Screening the hearing of 27’000 school children living in townships by 2020. The use of a self-developedhearing screening app for non-professionals to conduct hearing screenings makes this possible. The screening team consists of 6 community workers living in the same townships than the children who are screened, so there are no cultural or language barriers and those six locals have been able to escape unemployment –a harsh reality for many people living in these townships. (Photocredit: Christoph Höhmann, Camerabuddy)

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