India
Education and its transforming impact.
Education, development, lectures and life-empowerment projects brought Helios into contact with young people and communities, including engagement in remote areas.
Our journeyMore than twenty-five years.
More than twenty-five years.
One evolving purpose.
Helios Life Association began its journey in 2001 as Indian Ocean Care. What started with a commitment to communities connected to the Indian Ocean region has evolved across countries, cultures and forms of engagement — from direct educational support and work with young people to financial capability, lectures, international cooperation and participation in wider discussions on human development.
Through that evolution, one principle has remained constant:
Knowledge expands the possibilities people are able to see — and the choices they are able to make.
2001
Indian Ocean Care
A journey begins.
The organization that would become Helios Life Association was established in Switzerland in 2001 under the name Indian Ocean Care.
Its early activities focused on communities connected to the Indian Ocean region, with engagement spanning education, development and support in the aftermath of the tsunami.
These beginnings established an approach that would continue to shape the Association: working directly with people and communities, building relationships over time, and viewing education as a foundation for longer-term human development.
The early years
Education through presence.
Before programmes came relationships.Long before digital education became commonplace, Helios' work was rooted in direct engagement — visiting communities, spending time with young people, supporting education and developing relationships with local organizations.
Education was an opportunity to broaden perspective, strengthen confidence and help people recognize possibilities that might otherwise remain unseen.
Thailand
A sustained commitment to education.
Helios' history in Thailand included long-term educational engagement and support for a school over a number of years.
The emphasis was not on occasional assistance, but on continuity — recognizing that educational development depends upon relationships, encouragement and sustained attention.
Meaningful development is rarely created through a single intervention. Knowledge, confidence and opportunity develop over time.
Cambodia
From education to financial capability.
Collaboration with New Hope Cambodia in Siem Reap created an important platform for Helios' work with young people. The relationship included educational and youth-development activity as well as the development of the Centre of Excellence, with attention to financial management, business understanding and entrepreneurship.
The experience became particularly important in the evolution of Helios' thinking about financial literacy: young people need practical knowledge required to understand money, assess choices and participate confidently in economic life.
Explore financial literacy →Sri Lanka
Strengthening education through educators.
Helios was involved in efforts connected with the creation of the South Asian Centre for Teacher Development (SACTD) in Sri Lanka. SACTD became a UNESCO Category 2 Centre based in Meepe, creating an institutional platform dedicated to advancing teacher development within South Asia.
Money should be a tool.
Not the measure of a life.
Lectures and empowerment programmes in the Maldives explored financial literacy, responsible decision-making, personal development and the wider relationship between money, values and human wellbeing.
Different places.
A continuing purpose.
South Africa
Empowerment where opportunity is constrained.
Helios' engagement included life-empowerment, financial-empowerment and youth-development activities involving orphanages and vulnerable young people.
Namibia & Vietnam
Financial awareness. Education. Youth development.
Work in Namibia extended Helios' engagement with financial awareness and personal economic capability, while Vietnam became another chapter in the Association's educational and youth-development journey.
Geneva
Bringing experience into international dialogue.
Over time, Helios' journey also entered international policy and human-rights environments, including engagement associated with the United Nations in Geneva.
Local engagement and international dialogue are not separate stories. They are different expressions of the same continuing question:
What enables people to understand more, see further and participate more confidently in shaping their own lives?
Local experience.
International perspective.
One continuing commitment to human potential.
Helios has changed across more than twenty-five years because the environments in which people learn, work and make decisions have changed. The forms of engagement continue to evolve. The underlying purpose does not.
Knowledge opens possibilities.
Agency turns them into choices.