Access to education and food for young Madagascans
Challenge
International solidarityEducation
The Merci Endowment Fund works with the Abc Domino association in the Tuléar region of southwest Madagascar. This region is ranked by the International Monetary Fund as the 4th poorest country in the world. In this particularly poor and isolated province, deserted by international organizations, 47% of children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition and access to school is a daily challenge for all children.
Solution
Since 2010, the Merci Endowment Fund has been involved in the construction of 6 elementary school, 2 middle schools and 1 high school, providing schooling for 3,500 children with its long-standing partner Abc Domino. The Merci Endowment Fund also supports the provisioning of 6 canteens, ensuring a daily meal for pupils, sometimes the only one of the day. In 2022, an IT school opened its doors to welcome the first baccalaureate graduates.
News
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✨ The Merci Endowment Fund becomes the Grazie Endowment Fund. ✨ A word from Julien Cohen
In 2009, my parents, Marie-France and Bernard, invented a new way of doing philanthropy by creating the "Merci" concept store, a not-for-profit store whose entire profits were donated to an eponymous endowment fund.
In 2013, we sold the "Merci" store but, we continued the philanthropic adventure with our endowment fund.
15 years after its creation, the Merci Endowment Fund has grown, its projects have multiplied and its team has been strengthened.
Since 2011, the historic commitment to Madagascar continues, giving 3,700 children access to education every year.
Since 2017, the Merci Endowment Fund is also acting in France for the agricultural and food transition.
Since 2021, we've been working to revitalize rural areas by enabling refugees to settle around their know-how.
2024: The time has come to write a new chapter, a chapter called Grazie.
Why Grazie?
Because Grazie embodies continuity while symbolizing openness to change and cultural diversity.
Because the endowment fund reinvents itself without denying its DNA: a family, friends, values, convictions, projects and a mad desire to transform utopias into realities.
Because this word is beautiful in every language.
Julien Cohen
President of the Grazie Endowment Fund
In 2013, we sold the "Merci" store but, we continued the philanthropic adventure with our endowment fund.
15 years after its creation, the Merci Endowment Fund has grown, its projects have multiplied and its team has been strengthened.
Since 2011, the historic commitment to Madagascar continues, giving 3,700 children access to education every year.
Since 2017, the Merci Endowment Fund is also acting in France for the agricultural and food transition.
Since 2021, we've been working to revitalize rural areas by enabling refugees to settle around their know-how.
2024: The time has come to write a new chapter, a chapter called Grazie.
Why Grazie?
Because Grazie embodies continuity while symbolizing openness to change and cultural diversity.
Because the endowment fund reinvents itself without denying its DNA: a family, friends, values, convictions, projects and a mad desire to transform utopias into realities.
Because this word is beautiful in every language.
Julien Cohen
President of the Grazie Endowment Fund
Images from our Mission to Madagascar ☀️🇲🇬
Julien Cohen and Chloé Freoa have just spent 2 weeks in southwest Madagascar, on their annual mission to the schools of the Abc domino association, a long-standing partner of the Merci Endowment Fund.
They took the opportunity to fill up on children's smiles, new projects to improve the lives of villagers in the bush, but also photos to share with you!
(WATCH THE VIDEO)
A minute that feels good!!
#MissionMada2024 ☀️🇲🇬
They took the opportunity to fill up on children's smiles, new projects to improve the lives of villagers in the bush, but also photos to share with you!
(WATCH THE VIDEO)
A minute that feels good!!
#MissionMada2024 ☀️🇲🇬
The money will be used for
With €15,000, the Merci Endowment Fund provides full school fees for 100 children for a year in Madagascar. It also provides each child with a daily meal. This sum includes school fees, teachers' salaries, building maintenance, canteen for one year, animation of vegetable gardens, sewing workshops and libraries, as well as taking charge of new works such as new classrooms.
100% of donations received are used in full for the projects. Operating costs are covered by the administrators.
1.5 € = 1 month's tuition
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Why we love it?
Marie-France and Bernard Cohen are entrepreneurs for whom philanthropy has always been a matter of course: after the success of the Bonpoint brand, they created the Merci concept store, the profits from which are donated to the eponymous endowment fund set up to finance and support solidarity projects on a regular, long-term basis. In 2013, they donated the entire proceeds from the sale of Merci to this fund, and since then they have continued the family adventure of solidarity.
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