FRANCAISEnfants du Monde - Droits de l'Homme - History
1986-1989
-1986-1990, France: EMDH is launched by Yves Buannic, a former sailor and a priest who got 4% of the votes on an independent list, close to the left, during the parliamentary elections in the 4th district of Paris in 1981. In charge of the Saint-Paul Saint-Louis’ parish, father Yves Buannic had conducted demonstrations against the expelling of immigrants, real estate speculation and the lack of gardens in the Marais neighbourhood. As the president of France Amérique latine and a militant from a local commission of Justice and Peace, he had also facilitated the resettlement of Chilean refugees who had run away from general Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. EMDH is initially set up to defend the rights of the child. The association then decides to diffuse in French schools the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed at the United Nations. Development and emergency programmes abroad only start later and, at first, they focus on Haiti and Vietnam, where Yves Buannic already had contacts.
