| |
Started on January 20th 2003
at the Embassy of Argentina in Paris, the "Night Fight
- Vuelo Nocturno" campaign aims to support the children
of Argentina, victims of the economic crisis, with both material
and humanitarian aid.
Sponsored by comedian Marie-Christine Barrault and supported
by Mr. Juan Archibaldo Lanus, Ambassador of Argentina in France,
the campaign supports nine organizations, schools and homeless
children from Buenos Aires, Moron and Pacheco in its suburbs,
as well as Bahia Blanca, door to Patagonia.
In order to supervise the sending of early funding, to better
evaluate on-location needs and meet our various intermediators,
Frederic d'Agay, comedian Marie-Christine Barrault (the foundation's
godmother) and cellist Thomas Sprauel went to
To supervise the allocation of early funding, evaluate on-location
needs and meet various intermediators, several individuals visited
Argentina from February 19 to March 4, 2003. These included
Fred d’Aqay, Marie-Christine Barrault (the Foundation’s
godmother and comedian) and Thomas Sprauel (cellist).
Also included were Alexandre Perrier and Jerome Derathe, the
team behind the documentary film of this trip.
Upon arrival, Frederic d'Agay met Daniel Ollivier, cultural
advisor to the French Embassy, and Françoise Cochaud,
of the Alliance Française in Argentina. The purpose of
this meeting was to seal their agreement of collaboration, and
to allocate donations collected in France. These monies will
to be used by local organizations in the Buenos Aires area to
purchase all the necessary equipment they might need in the
Carrefour store of San Isidro, the location of which was selected
for mutual convenience. It was here, on February 28,2003 that
the first vouchers were distributed to representatives of selected
schools and associations.
On February the 22nd, the team traveled to Bahia Blanca 700km
south of Buenos Aires and was greeted by Martin Cormier, local
representative of the Alliance française, Oscar Rimondi,
ex president of the Aeroclub of Bahia Blanca, an historian of
the French air mail system and passionate about Saint-Exupéry.
The team also met Martin Garcia who introduced them to the many
"Exuperian" locations of important "aeropostale”
and places that would be helped by "Night Flight":
The Saint Exupery school of Bahia Blanca and the tiny library
"El Principito", located in the garage of Isabel Trujillo,
were also visited. It was Isabel Trujillo who had this amazing
idea to gather children of her neighborhood around reading.the
maintenance of city gardens and "El Tambor de Tacuari",
a group of percussion. We gave them many giftsand money. It
was decided to participate in the financing , renovation and
rebuilding of new premises and the first brick will be laid
on our next trip to Argentina around Christmas.
A press conference took place at the Alliance Française.
Afterwards, the French community and French speakers of Bahia
Blanco listened to a cello recital performed by Thomas Sprauel.
Among the many receptions and visits one stands out. Organized
by Oscar Rimaldi and his friends, the Bahia Blanca “Areoclub”
presented the very moving commemorative flight in memory of
Saint Exupery's first flight to Argentina.
Back to Buenos Aires on February 24th, our team met, thanks
to Clara Rivero (our friend and somehow Buenos Aires representative
at the Saint Exupery Institute), representatives of all the
Saint Exupery schools of the area. Some of these institutions
are relatively privileged and do not need material support,
outside of CDs, CD-ROMs, books… that we bring to them,
like everywhere. It is most important to introduce them to each
other and to create links between them so that the most privileged
might help the most needy.
Following this visit, and after we had put these two schools
in touch with each other, the Saint Exupery primary school of
San Fernando organized a charity concert in March for the Moron
Saint Exupery School. It was also decided to offer a grant every
year to young disadvantaged pupils.
Intense emotions awaited us at the Pacheco Saint Exupery school
where we traveled many times to meet Elba Schiller, vice director
of the school, the origin of our initiative with Clara Rivero.
She gave us a tour of other schools and institutions, that she
handles herself. Elba explained the difficulty of helping only
one school, even if it has the Saint Exupery name, in a unified
and homogenic neighborhood . We met and got to know the children
through playing games, dicovering the cello, interviewing and
shooting sessions of everyday life and of the Saint Exupery
school fire. We saw the same distress everywhere, the same consequences
of poor nutrition, buildings in disrepair, drug use, prostitution…
On February 27, we toured the air museum of Moron where we saw
the meticulousy renovated, famous “Late Modifie 25/28”.
This plane is the only one in existence today that once belonged
to Saint Exupery. The team shared a lunch with Ricardo Rososcka,
puppeteer and creator of a free-of-rights Little Prince show
with our support and tours around many needy institutions. The
team then visited the Cable a Tier Association. We support his
association that shelters homeless children and allows them
to grow thanks to the many activities offered them. We had long
discussions with Jorge and the leaders who explained the specific
problems of homeless children in this big housing development.
The problems are very different from Pacheco and include police
chases, delinquency, refusal of hospital care. These exchanges
help us modify our operation's content: beyond humanitarian
emergency aid, and help to create a new generation of children
who will become free, responsible Argentinian citizens.
On March 1st and 2nd, our team met Elsa Pico at Concordia, north
of Buenos Aires. Elsa Pico is the founding member of the Friends
of Saint Exupery association in Argentina. She is very devoted
and has worked in collaboration with our association for many
years. We visited the "El Principito" primary school
and the Saint Exupery school, as well as the castillo San Carlos,
the Argentine princess' home in "Terre des Hommes".It
was here where Marie-Christine Barrault gave us the honor of
reading these pages. It was a very emotional time.
On March 3rd, Frederic d'Agay and his team visited the Maria
Virgen Madre Institution in Hurlingham, Bueanos Aires.This Institution
is a shelter for children. It was created by a family who subsequently
developed 3 other similar centers in Argentina. Thanks to the
Cumpleano Feliz Association and its director, Patricia De Lucca
, these children are given birthday gifts. The Hurlingham establishment
was conceived for 60 children, but now shelters 225 children!
Children ages 1 to 21 are provided with food, education and
shelter. The Virgin Madre Institution receives substities for
only a quarter of the present children they welcome. Our team
promised to include the others in our "Flight Night -Vuelo
Nocturno" operation, which has since been completed.. At
the end of the afternoon, our team returned to Buenos Aires
for a few interviews with the press and to meet Gilles Desplanques
and Samuel Barrois of the Blue Orange Association. They had
just returned from a tour in South America where they taught
school children how to draw in the 7th Planet operation that
was sponsored by the Espace Saint Exupery. Orange
bleue
At night, in Buenos Aires', the Alliance
Française officially launched the "Night Flight
- Vuelo Nocturno" complete with a press conference. Immediately
following, a free recital, composed of readings of Saint Exupery's
texts, by Marie-Christine Barrault was given. Dominique Pinto,
cellist, also performed as did Thomas Sprauel,who, suffering,
returned to France. This successful event, in presence of many
personalities, was sold out leaving a hundred people unable
to attend the recital.
On March 4th it was time to return to Paris.
Upon returning from this trip, Frederic
d'Agay and Marie-Christine participated, on March 7th, in the
radio program Alter Ego on France Inter. As a result ,hundreds
and hundreds of calls and letters were received offering help.
This allowed us to create a great team of volunteers in France
who would be in charge of following each selected recipient
Argentinian establishment.
A few weeks later a "Night Flight" bookmark was published
that sold for 1 Euro. All proceeds will go to benefit the Argentinean
children. This bookmark is currently widely sold around the
Toulouse area in France, and we are planning on spreading the
operation to all of France next September. At that time, we
will contact all schools in France, with the name of Saint Exupery,
to present this project.
Thanks to your generosity and in particular, thanks to the great
support of graduates from the INSEAD School in France and Argentina,
we have already shipped 150 kilos worth of clothes and school
furniture. Concurrently, 15000 euros have been turned into vouchers
that have been used to buy goods urgently needed and school
equipment. We have also ordered 500 French methods and about
500 copies of the Little Prince to be distributed to the supported
institutions.
In order to develop our efficiency on location, volunteers will
very soon be traveling to Argentina to provide direct support,
academic help and humanitarian assistance to the children in
these institutions.
|
The children of the
Pacheco Saint Exupery School.
Concordia, memorial tablet.
"Aeropostale" warehouse.
"The Laté 28" being renovated.
operationvdn@wanadoo.fr
|
