FXB and Harvard University release the FXBVillage Toolkit and Planning Guide to extreme poverty eradication; Leaders n in economics and global development, including Nobel laureate Dr. Amartya Sen, celebrate launch
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 5, 2015 – FXB, an international organization with a 26-year history of disrupting the cycle of extreme poverty and uplifting children in the developing world, has taken the unusual step of making its FXBVillage methodology freely available to NGOs, venture philanthropists, social entrepreneurs and governments via an open-source toolkit.
FXB and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health released the FXBVillage Toolkit and Planning Guide on Monday morning at an intimate gathering of 50 members of the international development community in Cambridge, Mass. Featured speakers who discussed the proven success of the FXBVillage model included:
- Albina du Boisrouvray: FXB Founder and President Emerita,
- Dr. Amartya Sen: Nobel Laureate and Harvard University Professor of Economics and Philosophy,
- Dr. Jennifer Leaning: Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard University,
- Dr. Julio Frenk: Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Former Secretary of Health of Mexico,
- Sudhir Anand: Development Microeconomist; Adjunct Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
To download the interactive FXBVillage Toolkit and Planning Guide, which includes more than 200 pages of resources including a step-by-step guide to implementing an FXBVillage, tips from the field, case studies, quizzes, tools and more, please visit http://www.fxb.org/toolkit.
Over the past 26 years, FXB has used the FXBVillage model to lift more than 81,000 people from extreme poverty to self-sufficiency in eight countries including Burundi, China, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Rwanda, Uganda and Thailand. FXBVillages are comprised of 80 – 100 families who are carefully selected for the program, and the average cost per program participant per year ranges from $125 to $230. The FXBVillage model has been recognized by both UNAIDS and UNICEF as a best practice.
Du Boisrouvray founded FXB in 1989 in honor of her son, François-Xavier Bagnoud, who died at the age of 24 in a helicopter search-and-rescue mission in Mali. Her goals in starting the organization were to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic; eradicate extreme poverty; and, in full accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, raise a generation of children plagued by war, poverty and disease who, if not raised properly, would fuel what FXB refers to as the discarded generation.
“There is this linkage between today and tomorrow, with today being devoted to dealing with today’s problems and also creating capabilities to dealing with tomorrow’s challenges. Focus on sustainability is central to Albina’s work,” said Dr. Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate and Harvard University professor of economics and philosophy. “There are hundreds of millions of people who could ultimately benefit from the FXBVillage program and the followers it generates.”
