It's an association

On April 8th, 2017, at Be Oh! in Lausanne, took place the constitutive assembly of the non-profit association Pictures of India, our association. With 13 people present, including 11 who wished to become founding members, plus one excused founding member, we are now officially a small association with just 12 members, for now.

The assembly lasted for two hours, we read and discussed the Association's goals and the statuses, elected the committee and accounts auditors, shared our ideas and got excited about the association's projects.

The annual membership was fixed at 30 CHF per year for a physical person and 75 CHF for a moral person. We wanted to stay accessible for anyone interested, no matter their age or financial situation.

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2016 assessement

To get there, throw yourself into it and believe in it.

And I would say one also needs time. I had time, I was unemployed. By involving myself more in my association, I helped myself in 2016, but I mainly helped all the education projects in India that I have been supporting for a long time, I helped more than ever before.

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Constitutive Assembly of the association

Constitutive assemblee of the association

This year, Pictures of India becomes a real non profit association. I say real because, even though it already operated exactly like an association in fact, officially there were no statuses and therefore no association according the Swiss Civil Code.

Since January 2017, I have made some researches, set the prerequisites and wrote a first version of the Pictures of India association statuses. Those statuses will be validated by the constitutive assembly which will take place on April 8th and where the association founding members will meet.

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First photographers in: Sabrina and François

Girl in pink - Storyteller Sabrina

Beginning to mid-August, I sent about a dozen emails to miscellaneous photographers whose pictures I knew would look amazing in the calendar; Sabrina (Storyteller Sabrina) was the first to answer, a very short note "Would love contribute to your project" that just boosted me and proved that this calendar, my project, was going to be great because Sabrina was one of the first I really wanted to participate.

Sabrina is an Instagram photographer that I have been following for a long time, I love her pictures, mostly faces, people, girls and it just seemed obvious that she should be a part of the Pictures of India 2017 calendar with guests.

Soon after Sabrina, François (Jegerober) also said yes, he wasn't sure at first but, because I also really wanted him in and because I know him in person, I insisted and he finally agreed. François was the first to send a selection of pictures and as usual I was amazed with his work. I am so happy that he accepted to donate two of his latest pictures, actually taken this last summer, to the 2017 calendar.

Here are their answers to the questions I asked all photographers:

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Story of a calendar

Babbus du temple

One cannot imagine the workload there is in editing for the first time a calendar as special as this one, especially when one is alone to manage this all, the search for photographers, the selection of pictures, all the related emails, the printers offers, the formatting...

When I started working on this project, I found motivation and energy in thinking about the great challenge it is, but most of all because I could finally do more for the children and young women in difficulty who I want to help in India, where education lacks, to give them the tools for their independence.

I must have contacted a dozen photographers that I had thought of, some never answered, others let me know they were not participating, and at last, and for my greatest joy, five photographers accepted. I will be introducing them soon in another blog post, I promise.

Read more: Story of a calendar