2021, the path to the resilience needed for our world and future generations

The new year that is beginning invites us more than ever to mobilize, to remain united and united in the face of today’s immense challenges. Our response, as a foundation of general interest, is to work every day for a more ecological, inclusive and fulfilling transformation. Like this hand whose lifelines merge with the waterways of the Amazon, we believe in a society that places people and the Earth at the heart of its project, that invites responsibility and attention to others. For us, Citizen Art and Sustainable Food contribute through their formidable transversality to this desirable future by allowing everyone to act at their own level and collectively, in favor of change.

Together

Together, we go further and faster. More than ever, intelligence and collective action are essential, especially in the face of the climate emergency and the issue of social justice. In 2020, we initiated and structured in France, Spain and at the European level with Dafné, unprecedented collective approaches in the philanthropic sector: the French Coalition of Climate Foundations with the CFF, the #FundacionesPorElClima movement with the AEF.

In each of our programmes too, we support a wide variety of people and projects on the path of transition, we encourage crossovers between disciplines and approaches, and cooperation to bring out innovative solutions. The Social and Solidarity Economy is one of the paths we take to pool energies and strengths. In 2020, we conducted and published a participatory study in Spain. In France, it is through the prism of Sustainable Food that we have explored the prospects for the development of the SSE.

Finally, in our daily work, we never act alone and would like to thank the volunteer experts who accompany us and contribute to making our action as relevant as possible. In 2020, we had the pleasure of welcoming Bochra Benachour and Diego Garcia-Vega to the Executive Committee, two talented and motivated young directors. Their enthusiasm and experience will be invaluable in the years to come to take a fresh look at the Foundation and the world of tomorrow.

Accelerating the transition

2020 was an opportunity to look back on our 10 years of existence. 10 years of actions with 80 million euros for 1,000 subsidies, 10 years of meetings, sharing and reflection on the food transition, towards a model that respects people and ecosystems, and the development of the civic role of art, to exercise a sensitive and critical look at the world and strengthen the cohesion of society, with respect for diversity.

The crises we are currently going through only reinforce our conviction that Sustainable Food and Citizen Art are relevant levers for transformation, essential to respond to the climate emergency and the changes in our world. We now aim to accelerate the changes we deem possible, necessary and urgent.

Thus, we have been committed for many years to aligning our investments with our social mission, an ambitious bet to amplify our social and environmental impact, which we first shared in 2020 in a public report and during a webinar.

In the midst of the crisis last year, we responded and deployed an unprecedented plan to support our partners in difficulty, the artists and to accompany the most vulnerable audiences, following the example of our programs to fight against food insecurity. Today, we continue to affirm our commitments and support those who embody the desire to transform society, who share their experiences and ideas.

The future is in our hands

Our wish for 2021 is also to preserve our capacity for wonder. Despite the seriousness of the stakes, the laying bare of our fragility and our uncertainties, we want to contribute to ensuring that everyone finds the energy to continue creating, dreaming and imagining.

In the light of the profound upheavals that each of us is going through in our personal and collective spheres, we are offered the opportunity to reinvent our ways of living, being, consuming, producing, and sharing with each other.

These are the paths, the lifelines outlined last year among all our actions, by the 5 winners of the first edition of the Committed Citizen Artist Award, by the artistic education projects in schools carried out as part of the PEGASE and PLANEA programs, by the initiatives of mediation and cultural democracy in the Hauts de France and throughout Spain. But also by the collectives of farmers who volunteer to share the agroecological transition, and the 9 territories mobilized as part of the new TETRAA program in France, by the 13 cities of the SAT program and the national network for agroecology in Spain, by the 2 winners of the Food For Good Challenge. And in the coming year, we are sure of it, by the future winner of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship, by the always fruitful exchanges of the Sustainable Food Meetings, and by all the initiatives rich in meaning and promise that we are committed to supporting.

2021 will see the deployment of these new programs, carefully designed with many partners in France and Spain. Mobilization on climate will be one of the cornerstones of these actions: the Foundation is determined to go even further in its commitments, to mobilize and bring together all those who wish to change the situation. Time is running out.

So that 2021 marks the path towards the resilience needed for our world and future generations. This path is in our hands, let us share it in hope and joy.

So let’s get started! Manos a la obra!

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Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation

Discover our wish for tomorrow, what moves us and our values here

Artwork credit: Luna Bengoechea