Meeting the basic needs of the most vulnerable people
The mission of the Luxembourg Red Cross Solidarity Fund (FS-CRL) is to provide financial assistance to vulnerable individuals and families who have insufficient or non-existent income so that they can meet their primary needs such as food, housing, healthcare, essential items for daily life – or to pay for the services needed to live at home.
The Luxembourg Red Cross Solidarity Fund is financed exclusively through donations. The Fund is then able to provide financial aid to people dealing with life’s accidents which cannot be adequately supported through the usual mechanisms, be they health, family, employment or housing problems.
The recipients of aid are more or less equally divided between families and individuals. The number of single persons is explained by the large number of applications from the Red Cross Perspectives service, which looks after young people in supervised housing. More than half of the families are single-parent families – single mothers with children, who are more at risk of suffering from poverty.
The FS-CRL intervenes when other appropriate support bodies are lacking or prove insufficient. Beneficiaries must live in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Also taken into consideration are persons who are not eligible for the Social Offices, such as, for example, persons with the status of international protection applicant, persons subject to preventive detention or a custodial sentence.
Situations are always followed up by a professional from an internal service (for most requests) or from outside the Red Cross. Claimants not yet supported by the social sector are always first referred to the competent services. In situations where professionals are already involved, the FS-CRL then lends additional help.
One of the main principles of the Fund is that the financial assistance granted has to be part of a broader intervention. It must serve to improve the current situation. Therefore, a professional from the social sector who has been following the family must support the applications submitted to us. This helps guarantee that the money allocated by the Fund will be used wisely.
Depending on the availability of funds, the aid granted may be fully or partially repayable, on the basis of an established repayment plan. In practice, however, a number of the situations dealt with are so serious that aid from the Fund only serves to avert disaster for a short period of time. Small amounts of money can also sometimes be allocated in emergencies.
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