🧭 From crisis response to long-term impact—grounded in dignity and self-reliance.
🧭 Helping Hands was born from Luciana La Marca’s personal commitment, first sparked in 2015 in an emergency-response context, and gradually shaped around a simple yet demanding principle: sustainable aid means enabling autonomy, not creating dependency.
Helping Hands is not an association born from an abstract concept or a “copy and paste” model. It grew out of fieldwork, lived experience, and a shared realization among many donors today: one-off aid is sometimes necessary, but the help that truly changes a life is help delivered over the long term, with a clear objective and a coherent, well-defined approach.
🤝 Discover Helping Hands: https://helpinghands.fr/
🚨 2015: Emergency action, no frills
🚨 In 2015, Nepal was going through an extremely difficult period. In such situations, emergency relief calls for an immediate response: protection, support, and safety. When children lose their bearings, when families are shaken, when schooling becomes uncertain, urgent aid plays a vital role.
But Helping Hands soon confronted a decisive question—one that simplistic “humanitarian” narratives too often overlook:
❓What happens once the emergency is over?
When emotions fade, when the media move on, when one-off support dries up… children keep growing up. And this is precisely where so many paths begin to unravel: interrupted schooling, instability, dropping out, lost prospects, and increased vulnerability.
📌To better understand the critical role of education in crisis situations:
UNESCO – Education in emergencies: https://www.unesco.org/en/education/emergencies
⏳ Taking the long view: support rather than intervention
⏳ Helping Hands has therefore made a demanding choice: support over time.
This is not a “comfortable” choice. It raises a demanding question:
financial and moral continuity,
lasting resilience
ethical consistency,
and a clear vision of what it truly means to “help.”
Long-term support allows us to do what we can't do in a hurry: build, stabilise, support progress, respect a rhythm, secure schooling, encourage ambitions, and above all don't give up at the first hurdle.
🎯 The aim is not to “save” someone in their place.
🎯 The aim is to make possible a pathway: education, autonomy, inclusion, and dignity.
📌 On the principles of child protection and development:
UNICEF - Child protection: https://www.unicef.org/protection
🎓 Lessons learned over time in humanitarian aid
🎓 Ten years of field experience have taught us something very concrete: sustainable aid is not just about “giving”. It rests on three pillars.
✅ 1) Stability
A child cannot thrive in constant uncertainty. Even a minimum level of stability—schooling, environment, and consistent support—can change everything.
✅ 2) Education as the foundation for long-term stability
Without education, options shrink. With education, possibilities open up: the power to choose, to work, to protect oneself, and to build a future.
✅ 3) Autonomy as the ultimate goal
Helping people over the long term means aiming for autonomy, so that they can eventually no longer need help. This is not coldness—it is a profound form of respect.
📌To explore the concept of human development—dignity, autonomy, and capabilities:
UNDP – Human Development Reports: https://hdr.undp.org/
🧭 Helping Hands: shaped by real-world experience, not slogans
🧭 Helping Hands was shaped by a guiding principle:
Helping is not about creating dependency—it is about enabling independence.
This takes shape as a clear commitment:
🔍 Transparency: explain what is being done, what is in progress, and what is not yet possible.
🤝 Respect: do not instrumentalise those we support; do not confuse help with control.
🛠️ Sustainability: seek solutions that last over time, adapted to the local context.
📌 Coherence: link every action to a clear objective for progress.
This approach is particularly appealing to people who want to “invest” in a serious charity: committed donors, patrons, companies, institutional partners. They are not looking for a spectacular story. They are looking for a method: vision + consistency + realism.
🌍 Madagascar: expanding impact without losing meaning
🌍 Building on its founding experience in Nepal, Helping Hands is now committed to supporting a small school in Antsirabé, Madagascar.
In Madagascar, education is a major challenge—particularly in rural areas—where economic hardship and food insecurity directly affect school attendance: absenteeism, dropouts, fatigue, lack of equipment, and instability.
📌 To understand the country context:
World Bank – Madagascar: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/madagascar
🍽️ Priority: nutrition as a foundation for learning
🍽️Education cannot be separated from everyday reality. A hungry child cannot learn properly: they struggle to concentrate, retain information, or stay attentive. Nutrition and schooling are deeply interconnected.
That's why Helping Hands has a very specific priority: the school canteen (or school-related food aid) when the need arises.
This is not an “extra”. It is an educational lever. School meal programmes are widely recognised worldwide as a key factor in school attendance and academic success.
📌 To explore the impact of school canteen programmes:
WFP – School feeding: https://www.wfp.org/school-feeding
🌱 Toward self-sufficiency: a school garden and chicken coop as sustainable solutions
🌱 Helping Hands does not stop at immediate relief. From the very beginning, the association has focused on sustainable solutions designed to strengthen the school’s autonomy.
Two structuring, realistic, and practical initiatives:
🥬 A school vegetable garden
A vegetable garden is not just a source of food. It's also :
sharing skills and know-how
a hands-on learning project
a means of empowerment
community pride
a first step towards greater food self-reliance
🐔 A henhouse
A henhouse provides:
a regular supply of eggs for children (essential protein)
the ability to produce locally on a small scale
greater autonomy and, depending on the local context, a small supplementary income.
📌The FAO recognises school gardens as both educational and nutritional tools:
FAO – School food / school gardens: https://www.fao.org/school-food/en/
⚖️ Sober, progressive and responsible aid
⚖️ Helping Hands takes a deliberately sober approach: no unrealistic promises, no publicity stunts, no forced storytelling. This sobriety is a mark of seriousness.
Each project is grounded in three key realities:
Local reality: what is possible, useful, accepted, and maintainable.
The human reality: the pace of on-site partners, day-to-day management, and constraints.
The financial reality: first secure the essentials (meals, teachers, supplies), then gradually build autonomy.
This progressive approach is exactly what serious partners are looking for: it reduces risk, strengthens sustainability, and prevents dependency.
🤝 Why choose to support Helping Hands today?
🤝Helping Hands is not about funding a one-off action. It means supporting a structured vision of humanitarian aid:
⏳ The long term: because education is built over years.
🎯 Consistency: because each action serves a goal of autonomy.
💬 Transparency: because trust must be earned and protected.
🌱 Sustainability: because the future cannot be built on one-off interventions.
Helping Hands is designed for those who want to be sure their support goes toward:
strengthening a long-term journey (rather than patching a temporary gap),
being part of an empowerment strategy,
making a lasting impact.
💛 Making a donation: a simple act with a real impact
💛 For those wishing to support Helping Hands, donations may be eligible for a tax reduction, in accordance with the rules applicable in France.
👉 Official “tax-deductible donation” page (internal link for this article):
https://helpinghands.fr/don-defiscalise-reduction-impots/
This point matters: donors want to understand at a glance:
where the funds are allocated,
why they give,
and what this means in practical terms.
The article should be both human and structured, clearly reflecting a logical progression: emergency → continuity → autonomy.
🧩 Governance, accountability, and transparency: essential pillars of sustainability
🧩 Serious humanitarian aid is not just based on good intentions.
It also relies on clear governance, assumed responsibility, and constant transparency towards donors, partners, and beneficiaries.
Helping Hands fully embraces this requirement.
Because long-term commitment demands accountability: explaining the choices made, and acknowledging the limits when certain actions cannot yet be implemented.
Transparency is not a communication tool.
It is a condition of trust.
In practical terms, this means that Helping Hands is committed to :
clearly explaining priorities (education, food, stability)
clearly distinguishing between what has already been funded and what is still being planned
never promising what cannot be delivered
ensuring that every action fits into a realistic, long-term progression plan
This stance is essential for individuals and organisations wishing to support the association over the long term. Today’s sponsors, companies, and committed donors are looking for projects that are clear, responsible, and seriously managed.
By taking a measured, progressive, and responsible approach, Helping Hands protects not only the people it supports, but also those who choose to support it.
It is this demand for consistency that enables the association to grow without losing its meaning, and to remain true to its primary mission: helping without creating dependency.
✨Conclusion: choosing aid that respects, structures, and emancipates
✨ Since 2015, Helping Hands has been built on Luciana La Marca’s commitment, guided by one constant principle: help sustainably, without creating dependency, with autonomy as the horizon.
From Nepal to Madagascar, the association has chosen the long view, consistency, and respect for the people it supports. This choice sometimes means moving forward more slowly, but it ensures that our actions are fairer, stronger, and more sustainable.
Helping Hands is for those who want to support responsible, structured, and humane aid—aid that does not seek to “make noise”, but to truly build, step by step, the conditions for autonomy and dignity.
Supporting Helping Hands means choosing consistency, transparency, and real impact.
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