Who is Voix Libres?

Voix Libres is an international humanitarian association, independent of any political or religious movement, which was founded in 1993 by Marianne Sébastien.

Its overall aim is to educate and train deprived Bolivian children living in prisons, on the street and on the rubbish dumps, while working towards the prevention and abolishment of child labour in the mines.

Why wasVoix Libres founded ?

In order to create an association through which children can become the authors and directors of their life projects (once they have been educated and trained). This mission has been accomplished today: 90% of our 150 local co-ordinators were the original children that we were able to help at the very beginning. This ensures solidarity and a sustainable commitment.

In order to create a transparent association which publicly guarantees that 100% of donations, sponsorships and micro-credits go directly to finance our projects in Bolivia. Operational costs in Europe are entirely and exclusively covered by membership fees and donations by our main sponsors.

The children we helped at the very beginning of Voix Libres with Marianne... Today they are social workers.

How ?

Through an integrated development plan: educational, training, health programmes, infrastructures in shanty towns and villages in which all those concerned participate actively.

Child-leaders

The children of the target-population have become ‘leaders’ in their shanty towns. For example, the orphans who once worked in the Potosi mine and who today have been schooled and hold diplomas, thanks to Voix Libres scholarships, manage their own living quarters (drinking water, light, sewerage systems) and lead their entire community towards sustainable development.

Demanding ethical values have ensured significant results, which provide concrete means to the poorest populations in Latin America, enabling them to become autonomous, with the friendship, support and solidarity of our European network.

Voix Libre does not fight poverty, but instead provides the means by which those living in extreme misery may reach a state of dignified poverty. We do this by listening to their expression of their suffering with attention and repect…and fellow-feeling.

“I was terrified every day as soon as night fell on the mine” confided Maria. “I was beaten abused, robbed….and then I got a micro-credit and learnt how to become a woodworker. Over the past 6 months I have trained 12 women and 4 young people to work with wood. Every day, I help them gain self-confidence so that the suffering of our mothers and our ancestors will never be repeated.”

It all started with 12 children, deep in the mines. 15 years later, a family of 500’000 Bolivian beneficiaries and 25’000 friends in Europe share this utopia of justice and know that 100% of donations, sponsorships and micro-credits finance the children’s projects in Bolivia directly.

I have great admiration for the tireless efforts of around a hundred Bolivian co-ordinators, of whom a majority came to us from mines, streets or rubbish heaps. “As a child, I was a street vendor. Now I’m an attorney. At Voix Libres I give my life to all those who are deprived of every right. At present we are working in half of Bolivia, but there are so many requests that we shall soon have to become active through the whole country…”

Community resilience means that they rediscover their voices together, they sing, having been dumb and petrified in their past lives. Their examples multiply beyond all our expectations. “I was stagnating among the rubbish. Then I was loved, became aware and now I feel that I could do anything, in spite of my problems with alcohol. I got through my agricultural training successfully, and I am going to help to train lots of young people, so that they can, with the help of micro-credits, launch farming projects in their villages.” Since 1994, over 100’000 micro-credit beneficiaries have improved their standard of living and are now on the road towards autonomy.

These poor people are at the very heart of a solidarity-based economy that is their own invention, in which egotism and individualism play no part. This collective endeavour ensures decent and egalitarian living conditions. They were once passive, powerless, forgotten slaves. They are becoming responsible for their lives and for their communities. These children of the dark have created a world of hope and global development which cannot die as it comes from their hearts…as it does from yours. Thank you for your precious, concrete commitment.