The Fondation Chirac was launched by former French President Jacques Chirac, after having served two terms in office between 1995 and 2007. Since 2008, this foundation strives for peace through five advocacy programmes:
- conflict prevention
- access to water and sanitation
- access to quality medicines and healthcare
- access to land resources
- and preservation of cultural diversity
It supports field projects involving local people with innovative solutions. The Fondation Chirac has also awarded the Prize for Conflict Prevention every year since 2009.
The foundation's stated priorities include combatting falsified medicines, deforestation and desertification, and helping to preseve endangered languages and cultures. The "Sorosoro programme" took its name from an Araki word for "breath, speech, language". The endangered Araki language, in Vanuatu, was spoken by then by only eight people, and the programme's stated objective was to "participate actively in the struggle for the preservation and revitalisation of these endangered languages".
Read more about Fondation Chirac: History