My first contact with Gaby was through email; we decided to meet in person because I had a present I wanted to give her: a book.
That encounter left a strong mark on us and we have been bonded since then by our mutual commitment to PEOPLE and love for children.
As an Arab, I value and respect Gabriela and her work for peace between the Western World and the Arab World and all the silent but endless work she performs at the Foundation.
A great team of professionals and collaborators help her, all joined by the same goal: children.
I am so grateful for having the opportunity to work with this team pursuing a common good: a better world.
Fátima

Fátima is a Muslim; who cooperates toward interrelation between cultures and religions but also with Foundchild in the cases we receive from the East, especially those concerning possible weddings between Muslim and non-Muslim people.
We know that unless there is an agreement or universal law that protects children born as a result of intercultural marriage, these families will continue to be at risk, due to this huge gap between Muslim Law and International Law. We also know that some couples have defied that risk and try to cohabitate. We are still in the middle of the road; there is still a lot to be done.
A multicultural family is one in which each member lives in freedom and free of subjugation, which is born and nurtured with the cultural background and religion of its members and remains sustained in them.
A multicultural family is a family in which its members do not renounce their origin, and is nurtured by the effort of all its members.
A multicultural family walks along the road as they nurture that path with their respective sides; and as they do so, nurture their children with magnificence so that they in turn become a world citizen and integrate their parents and families, in spite of their different origin.
Do you think this is posible? A lot remains to be done; meanwhile, we learn to relate with each other.
                                                                                     Gabriela Arias Uriburu

FOUNDCHILD’S PARTICIPATION IN AN EXHIBITION IN BUENOS AIRES

Next December 10th FOUNDCHILD (Fundación “Niños Unidos para el Mundo”) has been invited to be part of the exhibition on the occasion of the World Human Rights Day which the Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires will celebrate at the Republic’s Public Square (where the Obelisk is) from 11am to 7pm.
Such exhibition shall be organized in the tent given by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) where the refugee’s issue will be present on one area of the tent and on the other, the celebration of the Human Rights declaration.

FOUNDCHILD will be present through the exhibition of a picture painted by artist Yuco, which idea/force for all those of us who integrate FOUNDCHILD shall be to transmit, point out, share, encourage and deliberate the subject of the place of Justice in today’s world in relation to the issue of childhood and vulnerable minority. With no dialogue there is no Justice; with no Justice, there is no love; with no justice, there is no Peace.

“LET US MOVE JUSTICE MAKING THE LAW HUMAN”

On a December 10th FOUNDCHILD started gestating, too; it was not sought but, from the conviction that, from a NGO it is possible working towards family integration, restitution and re-bonding, with the child as  fundamental person in the interdisciplinary development which joins the legal with the child’s psychophysical and spiritual parts

Before this place of action and commitment in History, FOUNDCHILD wants to communicate important and essential values for every man and woman on such an important day, especially for the children of the world. We want to call people’s attention. We want to be arms towards love. And through this participation and exhibition of this work of art, we want to transmit that a better world is possible. It depends on us to walk and see, feel and listen, commit and act so that the boys and girls (FOUNDCHILD’S main purpose) are today and always the main characters of a new time.

We invite all those persons who, in one way or other, have cooperated with FOUNDCHILD to be with us on that day. We will be waiting for you, to interlace ourselves and be a simple but tangible proposal which deserves urgent definitions here and in the world.

Important: Mrs. Gabriela Arias Uriburu will be present at the exhibition from 3 to 5 pm in order to communicate with the media and with those persons who want, in one way or other, to know about the Foundation’s work and the meaning of the work of art exhibited.
December 2008

Annex in the following page:
Details of the Painting exhibited by FOUNDCHILD for this event.

It is serious to discover that one cannot count on Justice but has to endure it. Children do know about this…

Tautological per se, the word justice proceeds from just and just is the one who obeys what justice orders, the exercise, enforcement and implementation of said justice often result paradoxical and ambiguous.
In such circumstances, the allegory of that woman blindfolded and her hands busy carrying a scales and a sword starts irritating to the point of turning unbearable. Foolishness, cruelty, cynicism… are only some of the various negative feelings which assault to the emerging victims in every situation related to deviations in the justice ambit. The question is: To know about the rights they have and to know the laws that protect them, to claim in their name… is it enough?

When we received the invitation from the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, apart from feeling thankful, necessarily aware that every human rights declaration is only possible in a healthy justice environment, we understood that the best tribute for this anniversary was to summon to an internal and personal exercise of responsible commitment, with the valorization of this term meaning (the term Justice). This is why we thought about a work of art, a painting that the image itself transmitted our purpose.

We had to find a painter who accepted and was capable of “summoning Justice for healing” from a revindicating aesthetics, ethics and moral from the child’s point of view in the adults’ world. Happily, as not everything that is good is found far away, we found the painter quite quickly.
Yuco is not only an artist he is, above all, an artist provided with flexibility, vital flexibility.
This ability which the category of natural talent or virtue fits properly was the one that enabled him to understand our request of shaping the model of a Justice moved by Infancy and its representatives, the children.
From the first meeting we had with Yuco, we knew that the lap and arms of our Justice should be free to receive and take charge of the children accordingly so, we decided to take away her blindfold from her eyes and free her hands. That was the beginning; that was the clue.
Diego, so wise and sensitive as patient and comprehensive, was able to capture and translate our worries to the point that he could achieve what today, it means for us, a delicate and forthright work of art.
Undoubtedly, from the pictorial group that arises from those blues, it causes a healthy intention; may Life want that all of us can take over what is our responsibility and what it corresponds to each of us, all of us.

Victoria Biraben
Foundchild’s Scientific Director

In December 2003 I was going to Buenos Aires and decided to buy a local magazine to read on the way. In that weekly issue, I read about Gabriela’s official webpage being inaugurated. It was an open space where his children could communicate. Back in Rosario, I tried to learn more about the foundation. I was driven by an inner voice which kept telling me to make a move, feeling confident that it was not a mere mood-related need to help that would simply go away. A few months later, I went back to Buenos Aires and visited the foundation. A couple of months passed by, and then I started working on some translations. Being such a competitive line of work and time consuming profession, it is hard to understand what drives a translator or an interpreter to work for free. Helping others fills my soul with joy, and in this case in particular, I got the feeling this was a journey, a quest with a happy ending. But it also helped me understand that no matter the result of our actions, it is our duty to help each other, and that there is a reason for us to be where we are needed: It is simply God’s will to put us in a specific place, and we have to be there when someone is in need. One day I was having a coffee, going through the newspaper headlines. I will never forget the expression on the face of a mother who had found her daughter thanks to the Foundation. I remembered working on such case. It had brought me to tears to think about the legal struggle they would have to go through, which never occurred thanks to the Foundation.

There I sat, on numerous weekends, reading documents and spending blank afternoons trying to help a colleague in the translation of Gabriela’s second book. To me, each word is an inch that gets a child closer to his parent. Since then, I have been just a modest spokesperson every time I am asked: “Was not there any other way to get the children back?” To which I answer: “There was, but this is the way it has to be so that the figure of the child be preserved above all”. It is all about listening to our hearts and honoring the place we have in our lives.

In life, there are moments to give and moments to receive…

This is MY time to give…a way to thank for all the good received up to the moment. And what could be better than do it for the children, to the children and with the children?

I got interested in the topic of parental abduction 10 years ago when I lived, suffered and endured –together with my best friend and soul sister- the kidnapping of her daughter Sabrina, from her father. We learnt where Sabrina was after three endless days and she was able to return home after 4 long months. This is the reason why when I learnt about Gabriela’s case through the media, my heart was immediately with her and I tried to follow her struggle and search for her kids throughout all these years. There was nothing, no tell-tale, suggesting I would later meet her and would share this part of her struggle.

This is how I get to FOUNDCHILD… in a casual –or causal? way hand in hand with María Rosa Grandinetti who summons me to join a project called A.L.M.A. Anyway, the commitment from the bottom of my heart is such; I feel I am part of this from the very beginning. I find an efficient team of professionals who devotedly and resolutely works in search of justice and children’s welfare.

Is there anything to add? YES! Collaborating makes me feel so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a time we moved, and at the same time… I took some distance for different reasons. Anyway, in spite of the distance, I learnt about the Foundation, Gabriela and the cases through the media and its web page. One day I was looking for a book to buy for my niece and all of a sudden I saw a pair of familiar eyes staring at me from its cover and the word Jordan in its title… After some minutes I was at home reading it and just after some days I found myself writing an e-mail to her again.

It’s been two years, now… and I had time to notice the work at the Foundation right now…Working now is a lot more difficult without a place of our own, no grant, no government support. However the Foundation has an excellent team. A team that keeps working from the bottom of their hearts.My regards to all of you.

Thanks Gabriela for letting me express my thoughts and as I keep telling you… you may always count on me.

Fabiola

I got to know about Gabriela’s case through the media and from the first moment I was impressed by her “peace” when telling her terrible story. I never heard her speaking badly about her husband, nor I saw her crying on any of the TV channels as so many times we have watched, which surprised me quite a lot. I devoured her first book and, as in the last page, an e-mail addressed appeared, it occurred to me that I, as a translator, could be useful for the Foundation – the only Foundation in Latin America for the manner of approaching this terrible issue of parental abduction – and in this way I could fulfill with my “pending debt” of helping somebody or doing something for others without taking away time from my children and my husband.

I sent her a mai offering myself as volunteer translator and they answered me saying they would consider my offer but the Foundation was still “being born”. More than a year later, they contacted me and I started translating (I think it was 1999), first small articles that appeared on the papers and then, the documents and letters that Gabriela needed to solve her children’s case. Since then, almost any paper Gabriela need was translated by me and today, I am very grateful to her not only for letting me be part of her Foundation but also because while helping her, after so many years, I learnt a lot about this sad drama of modern world.

Isabel Hope de LLach

Since the first minute when I turned on my camera and Gabriela recorded a day in her life in Buenos Aires to show Karim, Zuzi and Sharif in Jordan, I felt a close bond between us was born for good. Upon her arrival, Gabriela showed me video recordings of her stay in Jordan and I could see their little faces filled with awe and transparence, and that act changed my perception of space and time. To quote Vertov: ‘It’s the camera, empowered to organize the world’s visual chaos, in a coherent and objective protrait’.

Back in Jordan, Gabriela and then her children, recorded moments of their daily routine, moments that are eternal, when distance does not exist and all becomes joy, music, and singing. I used this material to edit the DVD’s; audiovisual language has the capacity of playing with time and space to create new meanings. The edited material also served as true words and phrases, and through this material I just showed the unseen side of a human being in daily life. As I did with Bianca in Buenos Aires, with her sister Chiara and Fabiana and her son Frédéric in France, I do not feel these images belong to me. For me, having met them is a gift of life. And I thank Gabriela for that.

This instropection is only possible as long as we do not misjudge what we are about to look. Meeting the other through emotion is ‘an act of looking’, but what happens when we speak in the plural form? It is all about you and me.  It is said that Truth is simply what it is. Truth is integration. Truth is unity.