The Emmanuel Foundation is a non-profit Catholic Foundation that has in the person and teachings of Christ its inspiring principle and foundation of its action. It was founded on September 20, 1966 by the Archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez, under the name "FOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT", with the purpose of promoting integral human development. It has civil legal personality granted on January 10, 1967, by decree No. 74 of the Ministry of Justice.
Vision
" To be a Catholic Foundation that has Jesus Christ as a principle and foundation to collaborate in the integral human promotion of the poorest, most vulnerable and excluded."
Mission
"Collaborate in the improvement of the quality of education and in the promotion of people living in conditions of poverty, vulnerability or exclusion, through support to projects that aim at their integral development and that at the same time generate positive impact in community."
Values
Throughout its years of existence the "Foundation for Development", now the Emmanuel Foundation, has oriented its actions to the social, spiritual, physical and affective promotion of the poorest and most excluded sectors of Chilean society. The promotion of new sources of employment and self-management that avoided the migration of unemployed from the countryside to the city, in the early years of its existence. Support for the training of rural workers and peasants, as well as support programs for young people and women, collaboration in the different forms of social action of the Church of Santiago, have been some of the tasks carried out by the Foundation . In this story also includes the gestation of the Financial Interest of Social Interest (FINTESA) that later gave rise to the Bank of Development.
After a discernment initiated in 2002 at the request of the Archbishop of Santiago, Monsignor Francisco Javier Errázuriz, the Board opened a new field focused on education as a lever for self-development and promotion in the dignity of people. This process was accompanied by a change of name of the Foundation that from 2005 was renamed the Emmanuel Foundation.
From this focus, the Foundation approaches the world of education and the reality of schools in sectors of poverty, to promote a practice of accompanying vulnerable educational establishments. The work was marked by a deep respect to: mobilize the actors of each community and maximize the capacities that contribute to improve the quality of the educational processes for the integral development of the children who participate in educational system. That was called Program of Accompaniment to Schools.
Along with this priority axis and since 1998, the Foundation has maintained a permanent and sustained support to the social programs of the Church of Santiago, through the financing of projects developed and implemented by the environmental and territorial Vicariate of the diocese. The role of the Foundation has been to protect the good use of resources and monitoring the achievement of the social objectives of each project.
As of 2012, the relevance of continuing to directly implement a school improvement program was evaluated, since the context of public policy in education had evolved with standards and resources focused on the improvement of vulnerable schools and high schools, with the decision to close the program and change the strategy to support the improvement of the quality of education in Catholic schools and colleges in the Archdiocese of Santiago.
