Stichting Geron

Contact

You can contact us by sending an e-mail to: india@stichtinggeron.nl which will lead you to Bastiaan du Pré, Secretary.

Who we are

Stichting Geron was founded in 1995 by dr. Nico Nobel and since 1998 the foundation is actively supporting different projects in India. Dr. Nico Nobel was president until 2005, after which he retired. One of the co-founders, mr. Droogleever-Fortuyn, was treasurer until 2008.

The current board of Stichting Geron consists of :

• Mrs. Annekoos Wiersinga, MD.

• Mr. Taco Deenstra, MSc.

• Mrs. Marlous Kortekaas, MD, Phd.

• Mr. Bastiaan du Pré, MSc.

• Mrs. Maria Veraart-van Wezel, MSc.

All board members are volunteers and receive no rewards or salaries.

How we work

Stichting Geron supports different projects in India, run by Indian NGO’s, among which children’s homes, shelter homes, tribal schools, a leprosy colony, an eye clinic, awareness programs on trafficking, HIV/ AIDS etc. and we support scientific research on child mortality in a tribal area. We focus our help to the states of Maharashtra, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Our aim is to help the NGO to develop herself, to grow its workers and beneficiaries and to get locally embedded, thereby becoming self sustaining as much as possible and non dependent from Stichting Geron on the long run.

Next to supporting individual ngo’s, Stichting Geron also strives to form a kind of a network organization in order to make a learning community for all their participating ngo’s. Working and thinking together leads to synergy and growth of the individual ngo’s, making them more successful. In order to achieve this, Stichting Geron has invested in long lasting relationships with the various Indian NGO's and their respective staffs.

Our befriended Indian organization Caring Friends (www.caringfriends.in) has partnered with almost all our NGO's and is a driving force for knowledge exchange between them and 30 other Indian NGO's through an anual 3-day meet organised for founders and key staff.

At least bi-annually, a delegation of our board travels to India to visit the project we support. The main goal of these visits is monitoring projects, seeing and feeling the work and coming in contact with stakeholders, staff and, most important, the women and children living and working in the projects. The meetings are also used for expanding the network and for training and teaching local staff and other ngo’s.

Progress reports from India and new initiatives are monitored during board meetings. Business cases, proposals for new projects and financial supports are discussed.

The money used for supporting projects comes from a small amount of donors in the Netherlands. For many years we have increases these amounts through matching grant schemes – mainly with Cordaid’s Private Initiatives Fund.

Activities 2015

For full our activities we refer to our Annual Reports, downloadable on this page (DUTCH).

In 2015 Stichting Geron

• has supported 7 Indian NGO’s and one Dutch initiative that benefited Indian children.

• has facilitated a 3 month internship of a Dutch student with one of our partner NGO’s: link to Hanne's tavelblog (DUTCH)

• has given a presentation about development work and cultural differences.

• has visited India in July / August 2015.

Current policy 2016

Stichting Geron will continue supporting projects in India, but is anticipating the reduced availability of funds. Since 2012 the trust has been downsizing its support and the overall number of beneficiaries. Our Indian partners have been informed about this.

The next 5 years, Stichting Geron will continue to downsize its sponsorships to projects in India. The board will keep in touch with its partners and discuss in what other ways Geron can be of support (other than acting as financial sponsor). Parallel to this dialogue with our Indian partners, the board will investigate partnerships with other Dutch trusts, and the acquisition of new funds.

Financial report

For more information please see our financial reports inclusing policy paragraph (both in Dutch language).