About Yari
Yari is a charity organisation with the vision that all children, regardless of socio-economic background, should have the opportunity to both fulfil their potential and to complete their education. We work directly with the affected families through our organisation, where we provide monthly financial assistance in exchange of having these children attending school. This method is called Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT), research has shown that this is indeed one of the most effective charity methods.
Yari organisation is based in Sweden but recently officially launched in Canada!
Yari creates opportunities for marginalised children in Iran to attend school in order to graduate and to fulfill their potentials. This is done by monthly financial contributions.
Yari is active in greater parts of Iran today, please see the map for more details. Our foundation is primarily active in Sweden and Canada for fundraising activities.
Currently our board consists of eight full members and two board alternates. These are chosen by all members of the association, every single one of them has a natural right to vote at our annual meetings. Our board consists of six women and four men, in the age range of 30-70.
The board is chosen by the members of the foundation, the election is every year at our annual meetings and all members are able to candidate.
Anybody can become a member by paying the annual member fee of at least 600 SEK (you could divide this to monthly payments). All of the member fee goes to the children.
All working members, including the board, work voluntarily. Currently Yari has one part time (20%) paid employee which started on 1st September 2019, working with communication and marketing. The cost of employment is funded by earmarked donations from entrepreneurs.
We have five persons in our coordination group in Tehran and 72 contact persons who are working directly with the children.
The coordination group in Iran currently consists of five persons who coordinate all our local field workers (contact persons for the children). They gather the children’s grades from the families, carry out random sample checks in order to ensure the children’s well-being, distribute means to our contact persons and also lead our big projects such as school constructions in Iran.
Our field workers are passionate volunteers that work without pay directly with the children. They are responsible for a local group of children (maximum 15) and are tasked with gathering their grades / proof of attendance from the families, check on the children’s well-being and distribute funds to the families.
As a monthly donor, you enable children to build their own future through education.
100% of our administrative costs are covered by earmarked donations from entrepreneurs.
About membership and children in Iran
How many children is Yari helping currently? How many children is Yari aiming to help in the future?
Yari is currently providing help to 1167 children, and since the founding of Yari, sponsors like you have helped thousands of children. Our goal is to provide help to 5 000 children by 2023.
When you become a sponsor, you will have a child assigned to you from our waiting list. The child will then begin to receive monthly financial aid through Yari and we will ensure that the child actually attends school and is completing his/her studies.
Yes. Every six months you will receive a compilation of the child’s grades and the contact person’s assessment of hers/his well being. You also have the opportunity to communicate directly with the family, under our monitoring the first times. After that, it will be between you as a sponsor and the child’s family to plan your phone calls or visiting dates. In case of illness or non-attendance you will be notified by us, something we also monitor continuously.
It is primarily our contact persons in Iran who give us a first recommendation after a thorough investigation of a potential Yari-child and their family. The investigation is done by our coordination group in Teheran, if the child meets our criteria, she/he is registered in our waiting list. After which we start searching for a sponsor for the child. Any member of the Yari Foundation also has the right to recommend families and children to be investigated, under the presumption that you are able to become a sponsor for her/him and if the foundation has a contact person in that area.
Yari maintains a waiting list of children in need, generally they are prioritised according to the longest waiting time, though at times urgent cases are presented that merit a higher priority and placement in the list.
Yaris check up on children’s school attendance consists of several parts.
Systematic checks: all children’s certifications and grades are collected twice a year (when the semesters end). The children’s contact persons also carry out two direct controls per year with each school to ensure that the children physically attend school as well. The data is then imported into our bespoke IT systems that automatically flags and notificies us if a child are missing proof of attendance or even if their grades has dropped significantly. We control the grades since we have seen strong correlation between dramatic changes in grades with dramatic changes in their lives. A dramatic negative change signals that something serious has happened and that the family or child might need further support or help which we will try to provide.
Random samples done by our coworkers in Iran: Our central organisation do sample testing by contacting the children and their families directly.
Visits by our board members: Our board members regularly visits Iran and then also visits sites where we are active in order to do their own sample testing as well.
Democratised controls: As a sponsor you are encouraged to have contact with the families, this also means that you are able to notify us if you feel something isn’t right. Note: We are always there in the beginning of initiating contact, in order to ensure the safety of the children.
You have the possibility to get in touch with your sponsored child and their family through the contact person assigned to that child. When you become a sponsor, you’ll also receive the contact person’s phone and email so that you can contact them directly. Keep in mind that they are volunteers and that rural areas might have bad coverage, but if your attempt in contacting them has remained unsuccessful, please email us at support@yari.se and we’ll help you get in touch.
About donation and payment
Yari works with direct donations of cash to the families and conditions them to prove that the children do attend school and study, they also give us the right to check up on this ourselves. This way of working is called Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT), a method that has been proven as one of the most effective ways of helping amongst charity methods. You may read more about our way of working here: Methodology & Approach
All donations are collected in a pool which is then distributed to the children. We do this to be able to help more children. For instance, when several people donate smaller amounts, their collective sums could help a child. Four times a year, we investigate what the monthly support should be in Toman (Iranian currency) or if we need to add extra one-time donations. We do this to ensure that inflation will not hollow out the purchasing power in the children’s study assistance. We might also determine to help a larger number of children if we see it giving a greater impact rather than to increase each child’s’ financial support in Toman.
Yari also pays 2 extra payments to students, one at beginning of new school year and one as new year gift.
We work with a currency change who receives SEK in Sweden and transfers the corresponding amount to our central account in Iran in Toman. Yari has double checked this process with the Financial Inspection of Sweden.
Yari has built its own organisation in Iran to minimize waste. A central organisation in Tehran makes payments to more than 60 local field workers who in turn pay each child’s funds directly to the child’s account (we have created accounts for all children). The field workers are required to give receipts for each transaction of funds from Yari to the families. These transactions are controlled both by an independent Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and ourselves.
You as a sponsor will receive grades and proof of attendance from Yari every six months. You also have the opportunity to directly contact the families and simply ask them about it.
Your subscription for sponsorship or monthly donations for the children applies until you cancel it. You can at any time cancel your subscription by contacting our customer care or through your bank / card provider.
To stop transfers / payments that has not yet been carried out, you need to notify us about your cancellation at least 5 days before the due date regardless of if it is through card or through bank transfers. If you do it through your card provider or bank then you need to make the changes at least one day before due date.
Due date for all transactions are on 28th each month.
You are welcome to contact our customer care at support@yari.se
If you like to change card, bank or bank account from which monthly donations are done, email our customer care at support@yari.se and we’ll help you!
One of our core principle is that 100% of your donation goes directly to the children. Our low administrative costs are supported by a group of private donors, foundations and entrepreneurs.
If you are monthly donor, you are welcome to email us at support@yari.se in case if you need any help. If you have question before being member you can contact us via social media or info@yari.se.
Activities, events and network
Our ambassadors are known personalities who use their networks to bring attention to the work of Yari and to the situation of the children. To see who are our current ambassadors please check YARI NETWROK page.
The entrepreneurs are a group of individuals and business persons who support our work by supporting our organization through earmarked donations to cover costs associated with administration, marketing and salaries. This ensures that all of the funds gathered for the sponsorship program can be used to support the childre
Depending on how you like to help, you will have the opportunity to work with different assignments. Please contact us at info@yari.se in order to receive more information on how you can contribute.
The festival is Yari’s biggest event and all of its profit goes to help the children of Yari.
Yes indeed! Yari arranges concerts, seminars and other events. Stay tuned for more info!
Follow us!