Our contributions
Energy for a bright future
BCL has been pooling its communications and international relations resources in order to make a contribution and provide assistance to promising development projects. We focus our energy on projects that contribute to sustainable development through quality education and constructive dialogue.
Pakistan
October 8, 2005. An earthquake reaching 7.6 on the Richter scale struck the region of Kashmir, killing 70,000 people. Most were children, buried beneath the debris of their schools.
Kaghan Valley School – Turning disaster into opportunity
BCL communications contributed to supporting the Kaghan Memorial School in memory of the thousands of children lost during the earthquake of October 8, 2005. One child from each family affected by the quake is able attend this progressive international-minded school, tuition-free, as part of a program to foster reconstruction and development in the Kaghan Valley. As Junaid Qasim Shah, Governor of Balakot, has said "Our aim is to turn a catastrophe into an opportunity for development".
Website: The Kaghan Memorial Trust
Mueenuddin Fund – Coming to the rescue
In October 2005, the very month the earthquake hit, BCL communications helped Lauren Mueenuddin create the Mueenuddin Fund, an emergency relief fund which subsequently raised nearly $40,000 in Europe and the US. The following December, Danielle Brunon went to Pakistan to further assist efforts on the ground.
Once there, she met with Junaid Qasim Shah, Governor of Balakot, the region hardest hit, whom she put in contact with Électriciens sans Frontières (ESF), thereby facilitating the installation of emergency heating for hundreds of people. This cooperation is due to grow into a program to generate electricity for the region using the hydro resources that abound in the mountains.
In early 2006, BCL communications worked with Kashif Khwaja, a local correspondent in Pakistan, and Keychain Films, a production company based in Islamabad, to produce a short documentary on the assistance ESF was able to provide in the region in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Burundi
In April 1994, the Rwanda genocide exploded into six months of atrocities, involving more than a million victims. Several hundred thousand Tutsis were massacred, hundreds of thousands of Hutus took to the roads in disastrous sanitary conditions and a terrible cholera epidemic caused thousands of deaths. In May, Marguerite Barankitse began to shelter dozens of children in a former school. The children chose to call it “Maison Shalom.”
Maison Shalom –
Peace and reconciliations for 10,000 orphans
Danielle Brunon and Letitia Toussaint met Marguerite Barankitse at Louvain-la-Neuve University (Belgium) where she was receiving a prestigious honorary degree alongside two other noteworthy recipients, Emile Shoufani and Andrea Riccardi.
Marguerite Barankitse founded Maison Shalom, a series of villages with health, education and training facilities, which have to date been home to over 10,000 Tutsi and Hutu children left without family by the civil war. At Maison Shalom, children receive reconciliation, peace and diversity education.
At BCL communications, Danielle Brunon helped bring about a village electrification project with Electriciens sans Frontières, with Letitia Toussaint acting as project interface during the development phase.
Website: Maison Shalom
Israël
Film "Artisans de Paix" – Dialogue for peace
BCL produced a film directed by Françoise Marie about noteworthy mediators between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, including an interview with Emile Shoufani in Nazareth.