The Association Olivier Föllmi
Created in August 2013, the aim of the Association Olivier Föllmi is to support the development of humanitarian projects dear to the artist.
The Association also supports Olivier Föllmi’s artistic projects and their dissemination by promoting his work and ensuring the durability of his heritage
Children the world over awaken to life through discovery and learning before they start to take action in their adult lives. In our society, it is an established fact that children learn by attending school. However, this is a privilege to which the majority of the world’s children have no access. Many of them do not experience this elementary step in learning and have no choice other than to start working as soon as they are able. They have to help in the fields, look after the animals on the mountain pastures, beg or work to support their families. The school “ideal” remains no more than an inaccessible dream for most families in the world, the priority of which is just to survive. Spontaneously all the world’s children reach out towards each other until inequality separates them. A child without education becomes a slave of the world, while an educated child will become his master. We refuse both cases. Our earth is a village where our children and our children’s children must build with all the world’s children, and communicate and interrelate with one another in order to live harmoniously.
In the 21st century, love should no longer be limited solely to the exclusive love of one’s own child, but should extend to all the children of the great human family. Our child is not only our child, but is the child of all humanity. The world will inevitably form part of his or her heritage, happy or hard according to the seeds that we have planted. To aim only at a selfish love for our own children without linking them to the other children in the world and to remain indifferent to inequality is to pass down to future generations a weakened world.
We have the extraordinary chance to be born where we are, we do not need to worry about our childrens’ education. We owe this chance to the generations of the past who, with love, courage, work and determination, have done their utmost so that we and our children are entitled to education. This is an extraordinary step for our society. In turn, we need to pass this wonderful possiblity over to children with a less certain future to ensure that history, in its making, gives its true meaning to the terms “development” and “humanity”.
This future lies in our hands.
Each one of us can contribute to this task.
Everything is possible.
