Our Priorities

HEKS/EPER backs and promotes civil society groups and their peaceful coexistence, helps them access land and natural resources and build sustainable farming and suitable markets.

In the event of natural disasters as well as during and after armed conflicts, HEKS/EPER provides needs-based relief to save lives and to quickly improve the living conditions of the affected people.

HEKS/EPER maintains an intensive exchange of experience and knowledge with the Reformed Churches in Eastern Europe, Italy and the Middle East and supports their social projects and strengthen church community life.

Formulating a creative development policy geared to people's needs is hardly conceivable without civil society participation. HEKS/EPER has been championing greater room for manoeuvre for underprivileged population groups for many years now. HEKS/EPER promotes project partners at the local, national and international levels that help these people avail themselves of their rights.

There are currently 65 million people on the move – 22.5 million of them outside their home country. HEKS/EPER wishes to send a message of hope for these people and to assist them during their journey. HEKS/EPER therefore provides emergency aid for refugees in crisis areas, along escape routes, and here in Switzerland.

Water is a basic prerequisite for all forms of life on earth and is therefore of inestimable value, whether for drinking or for food production. Yet this life-sustaining resource is more endangered than ever. Through its project work and its awareness-raising and networking activities, HEKS/EPER strives to ensure that the human right of access to water is recognized, protected and implemented.

In late 2018 the UN General Assembly in New York adopted a path-breaking Declaration on the protection of the rights of peasant families and other people working in rural areas. In concert with an alliance of civil society organizations, HEKS/EPER had championed the adoption of this Declaration and will now also be campaigning for its implementation.

Ever more people are being excluded because of their social background, ethnicity, age, gender or religion. HEKS/EPER works through its projects and its social commitment to ensure that everyone in this country can share in its social, cultural, political and economic life.

HEKS/EPER champions equal rights and opportunities. All people should be able to claim their legitimate rights and participate in Switzerland's economic, social, cultural and political life. HEKS/EPER activities revolve around asylum seekers and refugees, sans-papiers (undocumented persons) as well as people on low incomes and those facing discrimination.

The HEKS/EPER integration project «New Gardens» rents plots in public allotments at a variety of locations in different cantons and places these at the disposal of refugees and accompanies the project.

«HEKS/EPER MosaiQ» advises and accompanies qualified migrants in obtaining recognition of their foreign diplomas so that they can bring their professional potential to the Swiss job market.