Foundation statutes

The key requirement in the statutes of any foundation is its purpose. Here, as it was formally registered: „The purpose of the Foundation is help for needy people in developing countries, especially as survival-help for children and – wherever possible – as help for self-help; also (with never more than one third of all spending) the promotion of tolerance and understanding between people in developing countries and in Europe, especially in cultural fields.“
In reality, almost all funds and donations have up to now been designated and used for the first and main purpose: to give children a starting chance in life.

To maintain the key purpose of the Peter-Hesse-Foundation – Priority for early education – for the future of the Foundation’s engagement in and for ONE world in diversity, our board has decided on 28 September 2012 to adjust the formal Foundation purpose to our vision and to the working reality. This resulted in a new first sentence of § 2, sect. 2 of our statutes:

The purpose of the Peter-Hesse-Foundation is to contribute to a just and peaceful learning ONE world in diversity – with emphasis on providing children a chance through child-centered early education to enable life-long learning.

This new version of our formal purpose was approved on 8th February 2013.
Peter Hesse, October 2012

Foundation-policy / Guidelines for work (selection)

1. The foundation shall help the poorest of the poor to solve their own development problems.
2. Holistic mental, spiritual und physical as well as social, ecological, economical, cultural, technical und political development must be wanted, started und carried forward by the people themselves.
3. It is equally important to strengthen skills and opportunities for self-help as well as for helping others (charity).
4. Help must be directed to the smallest possible self-help-structure.
5. Development-goals must not be decided without those who need help. They must participate as partners in all planning and implementation.
6. Problem-solving paths of those who want to help themselves have priority. To avoid pseudo-modernistic erring, problem-solving paths must, however, be checked through dialogue.
7. Peoples’ dignity, value-system und culture, their spiritual und religious beliefs as well as their human relationship must always be respected.
8. Where traditional values block harmonious holistic development because of changes in framework-conditions, peoples’ attitudes may only be addressed with utmost care and responsibility.
9. Help to individuals or groups may only be given in a manner which avoids as much as possible social injustice towards those who do not receive help.
10. Help may only be given where those responsible are personally reliable and honestly engaged, live in adequate modesty and possess a minimum of problem-solving capability in the respective value-system.
11. Those who are being helped must at least contribute their own engagement and must make – whenever possible – some adequate contribution.
12. All help must be limited in time. The recipients’ self-help-capacity must grow to achieve self-sufficiency.
13. All technical assistance must be adapted to the future local maintenance-capacity and energy resources.
14. Where training is involved, skills and problem solving capacities have priority over mere transfer of knowledge.
15. Problem-solving experience must be shared with others.
16. The Foundation’s learning and experience must be used for global consciousness-development.