APDES is a NGDO founded in 2004. It aims to carry out interventions aimed at improving access to health, employment and education for communities and public in vulnerable situations. Working for the empowerment of people in national, European and African territories.
Vision, Mission and Values
Vision: To be an agent of social transformation, responsible and participatory, which seeks to promote global citizenship and integrated development.
Mission: Through technical, scientific, and political action, improve the living conditions of people and communities in vulnerable situations.
Values:
Identity – Ethical system and lifestyle
Humanism; Participation; Proximity; Transdisciplinarity
Competence – know-how
Community intervention; Investigation-action; Political action
Preference – economic and social benefit of services/products
Training of people and organizations; Access to health, employment, education and citizenship; Social cohesion
Internal – modus operandi of the organization
Space for innovation, debate, and experimentation; Personal and professional growth based on creative freedom; Solidary and sustainable management
History
Founded in 2004, APDES – Piaget Agency for Development – is a NGDO (Non-Governmental Development Organization) that promotes integrated development.
Based in Vila Nova de Gaia, APDES develops activities in this municipality and in cities such as Porto, Barcelos, Guarda, Viseu, Setúbal and Lisbon. Since 2008, it has internationalized its field of action and organized initiatives in countries in Europe, Cape Verde and Angola – a territory where it is registered and authorized to intervene as an international NGDO (by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of Angola) and where it develops intervention and training projects.
Objectives
Its main objective is to carry out interventions aimed at improving access to health, employment and education for communities and publics in vulnerable situations, working for the training of institutions and individuals and for the strengthening of social cohesion. APDES’s organizational profile encompasses four lines of action that guide the projects developed: health, risk reduction and human rights; health education; social cohesion and work, and cooperation and development.
All tasks performed respond to well-delineated work principles, such as research, participatory methodologies, proximity intervention, advocacy, evaluation, and transdisciplinary approach.
Affiliation
In 2011, through the recognition as a Non-Governmental Development Organization (NGDO) by Camões, I.P., APDES began to benefit from the status of public utility.
APDES’s affiliation in organizations is extensive, being a founding member and member of numerous national and international networks in the scope of topics such as risk reduction associated with the consumption of psychoactive substances, sex work, access to employment and human rights.
