Social Responsibility

In today's fast-moving world, where profit and progress play a very important role, those people who, through no fault of their own, have become society's outsiders are often forgotten. It can no longer be taken for granted that someone will take responsibility for those who do not enjoy good health or who, as a result of a bad start in life or difficult living conditions, have to fight for survival every day. We at Arcondis AG are aware of our responsibilities. Every year we provide support for people who urgently need help and we think not only in local but also in global terms. We donate each year a significant amount of money to three selected charities.

Kinderkrebshilfe Schweiz
Kinderkrebshilfe Schweiz is a self-help organisation that was originally founded in 1987 by parents of children with cancer under the name of "Schweizerische Interessengemeinschaft für krebskranke Kinder" (The Swiss interest group for children with cancer). The organisation represents and campaigns on behalf of the interests and needs of children with cancer and their families in Switzerland. By encouraging people who are in the same position to exchange information and experiences, it makes an important contribution to children's recovery and to improving the general situation of their families.

UNICEF (Switzerland)
UNICEF is the United Nations Children's Fund, which promotes the health and well-being of children and women throughout the world. UNICEF has no political or religious affiliations and works primarily to improve the living conditions of children in developing countries. The majority of these children lack the basic requirements for healthy development, such as clean water, sanitary facilities, sufficient food, a balanced diet, medical care and basic schooling. UNICEF also acts as the children's lawyer by ensuring that the "Convention on the Rights of the Child", which was adopted by the UN in 1989 and ratified by almost all its member states, is put into practice throughout the world.

Menschen für Menschen (founded by Karlheinz Böhm)
Karlheinz Böhm was born in 1928. He spent his childhood in Darmstadt, Hamburg and Dresden. He came through the Second World War unscathed after a period at a Swiss boarding school called the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz. He achieved worldwide fame as an actor as a result of the "Sissi" films made between 1955 and 1957, in which he starred as Emperor Franz-Joseph alongside Romy Schneider. In 1981 Karlheinz Böhm made a bet on the German television game show "Wetten, dass...?" that "one in every three viewers was not prepared to donate one German mark, one Swiss franc or seven Austrian schillings to help people in the Sahel area of Ethiopia." Armed with donations of 1.2 million German marks, after the programme he flew to Ethiopia for the first time in October 1981 and on 13 November 1981 founded the charity Menschen für Menschen (People for people). He lives for several months of every year in very simple conditions in Ethiopia. The rest of his time he spends on lecture tours in Europe. "My motivation is that very small word ANGER," explains Böhm. "Anger about the unjust and inhuman gap between the rich and the poor." Karlheinz and Almaz Böhm do not take a salary. They live on Böhm's savings and his inheritance from his father, the famous director Karl Böhm.