Legacies, gifts and life insurance
Leaving what will outlast you
A life can go on protecting others, long after it ends. Naming the AVEC Switzerland association in your will is a way of carrying forward what you have built and stood for.
Philippe Cloux, Lausanne: +41 79 213 73 27 · patrik.roux@info-avec.org · Do you live in France? Read our note first
Four things to know, before anything else
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Nothing changes during your lifetime
A legacy only takes effect on your estate. You may amend or revoke your will at any time, answerable to no one. Thinking about what you leave behind is not the same as giving something up.
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Your family comes first
This is the law, and it is also our conviction. In Switzerland, the share the law reserves for your family is untouchable, and since 2023 you have been free to dispose of half your estate, even with a spouse and children. Do you live in France? The rules differ: read our note.
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There is no legacy too small
There is no minimum amount. A sum of money, a savings account, a piece of jewellery, a life insurance policy, a share of your estate: every gesture finds its place in Battambang.
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A legacy exempt from tax
In Switzerland, the canton of Vaud, like most French-speaking cantons, exempts legacies to public-benefit institutions from tax: your gesture arrives in full in Battambang. A tax certificate is available on simple request.
What your gesture becomes in Battambang
AVEC is a small organisation. That is a limitation, and it is a strength. With us, your legacy is not diluted within a large machine: you can name the programme it will fund, and it will fund exactly that.
In very concrete terms: at the shelter, a meal costs 25 centimes. The house serves 120 a day, seven days a week, to the children as well as to those who come to its table: nearly 44 000 meals a year, for around 11 000 dollars, a little under 10 000 francs. A legacy, even one modest by the scale of an estate, funds years of daily life here: rice, schooling, the infirmary, the wages of the care workers.
Sreyneat arrived at the shelter at the age of twelve, after her mother’s death, having never set foot in a school. Today she is a qualified nurse, top of her graduating class, and is training to become a midwife. She has told her story in a book. Her two sisters grew up at the same shelter; one of them is now completing a master’s degree in computer science. A legacy means lives like theirs, carried through to everything they could become.
A classroom in Battambang still open in 2045. Children who will learn to read thanks to someone they will never have met.
You will be speaking to a person, not a department
A word from Patrik
My name is Patrik Roux. I left Switzerland for Battambang more than twenty years ago. I thought I was leaving for a while; I never really came back.
In 2005, together with Theavy, my Cambodian wife, we founded AVEC. In the beginning, it was almost nothing: a few children who needed to be taken out of situations I will not describe here. Today, it is a shelter, schools, a training centre. Hundreds of children learning to read, to count, to stand on their own two feet in life.
If I am writing to you directly, without an intermediary, it is because a legacy is not a donation like any other. It is the greatest act of trust there is: entrusting what one has built to hands that will keep working once one is no longer there to watch. Trust like that should not be addressed to a set of initials. It should be addressed to someone. So here is my name, here is my face. You may write to me.
And if one day you decide to leave a part of your story to AVEC, I make you the promise I have kept for twenty years: almost everything will go to the children, in the field. Not into offices. This promise, moreover, no longer rests on me alone: Theavy, our committee in Switzerland, and a Cambodian team that has grown up with AVEC already carry it forward. That is how it will outlast me.
Patrik Roux, co-founder of AVEC with Theavy Bun
What twenty years have built
2005
Our first year
In Battambang, without interruption
26
Children at the shelter
Housed and supported
1 454
Course enrolments in 2025
English and computing
95,9 %
To the field
Accounts audited every year
Would you prefer the telephone, and a voice in Switzerland? Philippe Cloux, president of the association, will answer from Lausanne.
Philippe Cloux
President of the AVEC Switzerland association, Lausanne
philippe.cloux@info-avec.org
+41 79 213 73 27
Patrik Roux
Co-founder of the AVEC NGO, Battambang
patrik.roux@info-avec.org
+855 12 582 844 (WhatsApp and Telegram)
Our commitments to you
- Absolute confidentiality. Nothing said between you and AVEC goes beyond our committee. Your name will never be disclosed without your written consent.
- No pressure, no solicitation. We answer your questions; we never chase you for a reply. This is a matter for your own time, not ours.
- Respect for your wishes. The programme you name (the shelter, scholarships, the training centre) will be funded, and only that one. A will may not be read for twenty years: your notary can provide for an alternative purpose should a programme have already fulfilled its mission by then; we will help you word it.
- A record, or anonymity: the choice is yours. Your name, or that of a loved one you wish to honour, can remain associated with the programme you supported. Or nothing at all, if that is your preference. And with your written consent, we will show your family what your gesture achieves in Battambang, backed up with photographs and reports.
Your questions, our answers
What if AVEC no longer existed by the time I am no longer here?
In twenty years, AVEC has never closed its doors. Not even in December 2025, when the conflict at the border sent fighter jets over the shelter: meals were served, lessons took place, every single one. Decisions rest with a collegial committee (Philippe Cloux, Julie de Meyer, Patrik Roux), a Cambodian team runs the programmes day to day, and the next generation is already in place: Chhing, a computer science student, comes back every week to teach the younger children as a volunteer, in the very rooms where he himself learnt. In the event of dissolution, the statutes require the assets to be transferred to an organisation with a similar purpose.
Can I leave a property in my will?
Yes: a home, a plot of land or business premises, reserving its use, if you wish, for a loved one for the rest of their life. A property here can become, there, years of schooling, hot meals and safety. The exact wording can be found in our guide Your will, step by step.
Can I also give during my lifetime?
Yes. A sum of money, securities or property can be transferred during your lifetime: you then see with your own eyes what your gesture makes possible, even to the point of sitting at the back of a classroom in Battambang yourself. As a lifetime gift is, in principle, irrevocable, let us talk about it first. A gift with reserved usufruct, for example, leaves you the use of your home for the rest of your life.
What happens to my estate if I have neither a will nor heirs?
In Switzerland, it passes in full to your canton or municipality; in France, to the State. A will, even just a few handwritten lines, dated and signed, is enough to decide otherwise, in both countries.
When is the right time to think about this?
Whichever moment you choose. Most people add a charity to their will at the point when life leads them, in any case, to write or revise it: retirement, selling a house, a birth in the family. And if your will dates from before 2023, it is worth reviewing regardless: Swiss inheritance law has changed, and your freely disposable share is probably larger than it was when you signed it.
Do you live in France?
This page describes Swiss law. In France, the rules are different: the share reserved for your children, the forms a will may take, and above all the taxation of legacies to associations, are governed by other texts. Only certain categories of association may receive a legacy there free of duty; for the others, the State takes 60 % of the legacy. We are having the exact position of the Association AVEC France verified on this specific point, and we will never ask you to bet on an answer we do not yet have. We would rather tell you plainly where things stand than promise something we cannot yet prove.
Before taking any steps, write to us and speak to your notary: we will tell you plainly where that verification stands. And from today, you can support AVEC from France with a donation that qualifies for a 66 % tax reduction.
How to proceed, in three steps
Leaving a legacy to an association in Switzerland involves three steps.
1
An initial conversation
You tell us, in broad terms, what you are considering, and, if you wish, what connects you to this cause: we like to know what story a legacy carries forward. We answer your questions, without asking you to decide anything. Philippe Cloux: +41 79 213 73 27 · patrik.roux@info-avec.org
2
A file for your notary
We provide you with everything your notary needs: our statutes, exact name and address, the tax-exemption decision, audited annual reports, and examples of will wording.
3
Drafting the will with your notary
You consult your usual notary, who knows your situation. We never draft your will ourselves: the choice of your adviser is yours.
To find out more, at your own pace
Your will, step by step
What you can leave in your will, the three forms a will may take in Switzerland, AVEC’s exact legal designation, sample clauses to discuss with your notary and mistakes to avoid.
The legacy guide
The essentials of these pages in a plain brochure, to read at home, at your own pace, or to take along to your notary. Would you rather receive it by post? A call is all it takes: +41 79 213 73 27.
A word, whenever you wish
An initial conversation, by telephone or email, confidential and with no obligation. Tell us an amount: we will tell you precisely what it would achieve in Battambang.
Your conversations remain confidential.