Working Principles

“From church, Through church” principle

“From church, Through church” is the working principle of CEDAR as a poverty alleviation organisation. Since the establishment of CEDAR, we are relying on the support of local Christians and local churches to work with churches and Christian poverty alleviation organisations all around the world and promote various relief and poverty alleviation projects (CEDAR will also consider joining the projects without any suitable partners but is supervised by person agree our basic religion.) The reason behind is due to the mission of a Christian – respond to the sufferings of the world with the love of Christ, serving the needy around the world. Christians participating in community service is not necessary to be better than non-believers or groups, but this is the reason why Christians are called, to be a witness of Christ in the world.

Since local churches and Christian poverty alleviation organisations are rooted in the community, understand the need of the community, have established a solid resources network, so they are better than the other poverty alleviation organisations in ministry mobilisation, planning and to the operation. Moreover, local churches can walk will the community in the long run to achieve a long way of community transformation and renewal. In view of this, CEDAR will not carry out projects in other places alone generally, but to support the Christian partners there to serve the poor and benefit the community.

Thanks for the support from churches through pray, donation, etc. to walk with the poor.

Principle of starting and ending a project

With the mission of Christian poverty alleviation organisation, CEDAR is committed to serving the weakest poor in the world. When we start a project, we will not only consider the needs of the poor, but we will also base on the social condition and cultural characteristics there, according to the needs assessment and baseline survey to choose the most suitable way to intervene. We will also quantify whether the poverty alleviation project has the element of social participation, ensuring that the project can have enough social support. For example:

1. Whether the project have the manpower to mobilise the community;

2. Whether it is fair when choosing the beneficiaries;

3. Whether there is any channel for the residents in the community to give feedbacks on the project operation;

4. Whether we have the plan to form volunteer team to help promoting the project;

5. Whether the community experience can be shared and transformed to the other community after the project.

CEDAR knows that the sustainable development and transformation require the participation and responsibility of different stakeholders in the community. Therefore, the above-mentioned element will be an essential part for us to assess the effect of the project. If after our assessment, we are sure that the community has enough self-direct and sustainable development (such as the community can operate by themselves, local churches and Christian poverty alleviation organisations can make long-term service and support, beneficiaries can take part in community development, etc.), CEDAR will establish a “project withdrawal” system with our partners to let the community development back to the community.

Funding principle

CEDAR adopts the method of “funding first, then fundraising”, first remit the funds needed for the rescue project to partner churches or Christian poverty alleviation organisations, to let needy receive assistance as soon as possible, fulfil the poor community development and at the same time appeal to believers to donate. This will prevent the frontline rescue work from being affected by the level of fundraising. If we raise more funds than we have allocated, we can allocate more funds according to the needs there, so that more poor can receive practical help.

RELIEF WORK PRINCIPLE

Click here to learn more about CEDAR’s relief work as a Christian poverty alleviation organisation.