In late November, Hôtel de Sauroy in Paris held a beautiful short-term exhibition of photographs highlighting the living conditions of orphans in India. The journalist Floris de Bonneville, formerly of Gamma Agency, explains the importance of this initiative.
A woman whom I admire, and whom I had known well for twenty years at Gamma where she headed the Gamma-Liaison office, our U.S. branch, decided upon her retirement ten years ago to help others survive, live, and make their lives a little happier. On a trip to India, she was dismayed at seeing multitudes of stray children wandering in the streets, especially around the Varanasi (also known as Benares) train station. Children as young as four or five would prostitute themselves, find oblivion in drugs, live outdoors, feed on scraps. This misery, well familiar to the homeless in our own country, is, far beyond our borders, a forgotten inferno.
Overnight, without any second thought, Elisabeth became passionate about those neglected children from Varanasi. A plane ticket later, she chose a dozen of them to start a school, offering them lodging and board with the help of a few locals. This was ten years ago. Thus was born the non-profit organization Act&Help.
Today, Elisabeth Bernard shelters the children she has picked off the street in a large building nicknamed Disha (which means “the road”) for girls and Asha (“hope”) for boys. After originally accepting only girls, she started welcoming boys who come to learn something other than drugs and curb-crawling. There are now fifty boys attending courses dispensed for their benefit. Some are learning to play the guitar, others train in karate, computer science, or dance, or take sewing or cooking classes.
While girls sleep in their new home, purchased thanks to donations, boys return to their families, even if they live in misery. Boys are not at risk in their environment. The organization provides them with tutoring and regular health checks.
Elisabeth Bernard vowed to bring out their smiles and give them a reason to live. In a few years, these little girls and boys will become young women and men ready to be engaged in the new India, success now within their reach. Thanks to Disha and Asha. You may say that fifty rescued children is a drop in the ocean of poverty afflicting thousands Indian neighborhoods. But it’s a start.
This is why Act & Help needs our support. Every donation is welcome. The organization thus invited the public to an exhibition of a hundred photographs displayed at the exquisite Hôtel de Sauroy, 58 rue Charlot in Paris, in the 3rd Arrondissement.
Thirteen of these photographs retraced Elisabeth’s activities in the two rescue homes on the banks of Ganges in Varanasi. She received the artists’ right to sell the works, which has enabled her to carry on her work with the Indian children. The artists include Dominique Debelle, Vincent John Soimaud, Franklin Erder, Jane Evelyn Atwood—who said she was very touched by the “Sister Emmanuelle” spirit of the former journalist, Alan Compton—who designed the magnificent poster for the exhibition, Alain Buu, Heifara Anielsson, Jean-Pierre Poinas, Jérémie Lusseau, Anne Tilleke, Florence Levieils, Art Waves, and Marie Micheangeli—who claims she is not a photographer but someone entranced by the subject. Depending on the format, the prints are priced between 100 and 1,000 euros, and all the proceeds go to the NGO.
Floris de Bonneville
Floris de Bonneville is a French journalist, former editor-in-chief at Gamma Agency between 1968 and 1996. He lives and works in Paris.
Act & Help
Hôtel de Sauroy
58 rue charlot
75003 Paris
France
