Organisation  -  Our Board  -  Finances  -  Our History

Children of Sikkim Foundation (COSF) is organized as an association in Switzerland. The voluntary board members are elected by the annual general assembly. According to the statutes of direct aid, all donations and further income are used in order to achieve our goals which are:

We offer school education and a home to children from the poorest mountain farming families in desperate situations and offer long-term help.

All board members work on a voluntary basis, which is why the association's expenses are only around 5%.

We take our duty of care seriously and visit our project in Sikkim once or twice a year. Furthermore, several video meetings take place throughout the year.

In the year under review, COSF transferred CHF 145,000 for the operational management of HDFS. Thanks to the donations, which were again well above budget, a further allocation of CHF 20,000 to the reserve for projects and infrastructure could be made. The expenses budgeted for 2023 for the “Security Fencing” project, estimated at around CHF 70,000, will be paid from this reserve.

The extensive IT project planned for 2023 was brought forward on the advice of our IT service provider. The requirements for our database and security solutions that were developed during a workshop were implemented during the second semester of 2022. The resulting costs will burden the 2022 annual accounts with CHF 28,773.

The total income of CHF 208,795 is above budget thanks to the continued generous donations. Since the contributions to HDFS were lower than budgeted, the additional expenses for travel expenses and IT project costs could be compensated.

Equity amounts to CHF 561'418 (previous year CHF 538'944). In addition, there is CHF 19,018 in outside capital, resulting in a total capital of CHF 580,436. With CHF 579,789 in liquid funds and financial assets, the entire capital is invested at short notice. Thanks to this high level of liquidity, the extraordinary expenses planned for 2023 for the "Security Fencing" project and for the completion of the IT project (totalling around CHF 75,000) can be financed in addition to the ordinary operating expenses.

In 1993 Christina Notter and Jürg Eugster, two young Swiss people who were part of a small group of tourists, visited the former Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim, a semi-autonomous state in India since 1975.

They were greatly impressed by the beauty of the densely, overgrown, mountainous landscape and the deeply rooted, Buddhist way of life, but were appalled by the many needy children who had been abandoned to fend for themselves and with no possibility of a future life and education. As a result, the CHILDREN of SIKKIM FOUNDATION (COSF) was founded a year later in 1996.

Lepcha Cottage infant home:

At the time, the highly esteemed Miss Keepu Lepcha generously cared for twenty small orphans in her private home. Not only did her Lepcha infant home become part of COSF, but Miss Keepu also provided a plot of land outside Gangtok for the construction of a children's village with a school and 2 homes for the children.

In 1998 our local partner organisation HUMAN DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION OF SIKKIM (HDFS) was founded and registered by the Indian Ministry of the Interior.

More than 250 people from Europe, mostly from Switzerland, but also many from Norway and Germany, have become godparents/sponsors of a child. Private donors, companies and public institutions also support the foundation.