Roche has supported the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for over 100 years. In 2005, we became a founding member of the ICRC Corporate Support Group.

Since 2006, we have contributed to water and habitat activities in several countries, including Pakistan, Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda, Burundi, Eritrea, Guinea and Mali. These activities aim to ensure that people affected by armed conflict have access to clean water, proper sanitation and sustainable living environments.

Due to protracted conflict, drought and limited resources, the lack of water access in Mali has been particularly acute in recent years. Our contribution has enabled the ICRC to improve access to water for many violence-affected people there.

The WWF was co-founded by Dr Lukas (Luc) Hoffmann, grandson of Roche founder Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche and his wife, Adèle, and former member of the Roche Board of Directors.

Roche has continued to support the WWF ever since. Our contributions help to support sustainable community rebuilding and humanitarian projects in areas devastated by natural disasters in Asia and Africa.

Through our support, in 2018, the WWF built two Community Disaster Rescue Centres (CDRCs) and provided flood preparedness training, benefitting 2,750+ people in southern Nepal. In 2019, two CDRCs were constructed along the flood-prone Tana River in Kenya, benefitting 200+ people. In 2020, two CDRCs were constructed in Zimbabwe following the floods of Cyclone Idai and training 320 community members.

Roche has been partnering with Swiss Youth in Science (Schweizer Jugend forscht), which seeks to promote science and technology to young people, for over 50 years.

In 2009, Roche became a founding sponsor for the organisation’s signature think tank programme, the International Swiss Talent Forum. The annual meeting brings together young people from around the world to discuss current global issues.

In 2021, the students (ages 18 to 22 years old) came together to work on the theme “Rethinking Surveillance,” brainstorming solutions on how society can support information sharing while protecting privacy.

Roche has been the main external sponsor of Phelophepa, a free mobile healthcare clinic that travels to rural areas in South Africa, since the first train journey in 1994. Since then, a long-term partnership with Transnet continued to evolve, including the refurbishment of the first train in 2010 and the launch of a second train, in 2012, to respond to the increasing needs of some of the most deprived areas in South Africa.

Roche provided additional support during the COVID-19 pandemic including protective and sanitising equipment. In 2021, Transnet launched a third train to support Phelophepa’s COVID-19 response. Over 16,000 people were vaccinated and over 127,000 patients received basic healthcare.

Roche and UNICEF have been working together since 2003 to support access to education for children from disadvantaged backgrounds in several countries throughout Africa and Asia.

In recent years, Roche’s contributions have enabled UNICEF to support access to early childhood education programmes across Ethiopia. In particular, initiatives including Child-to-Child and Accelerated School Readiness have provided low-cost alternatives for young children’s school readiness in communities where formal pre-primary education are either nonexistent or unavailable to most families.

Roche started partnering with Habitat for Humanity in 2016 to help vulnerable families affected by the earthquakes in Nepal. The project has helped to reconstruct disaster-resistant houses, train community members and establish a Housing Support Service Centre.

Our contributions have also helped to support vulnerable families affected by the 2017 devastating floods in Nepal. This programme includes building additional new houses in safer areas, rehabilitating and restoring damaged housing, and training communities on disaster resiliency.