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FXB International

FXB International
Abbreviation FXB
Named after François-Xavier Bagnoud
Formation 1989
Founder Albina du Boisrouvray
Region
International

FXB International, also known as Association François-Xavier Bagnoud, is an international development organization aimed at providing support for communities affected by AIDS and poverty. The organization was founded in 1989 by Albina du Boisrouvray.

FXB International, abbreviated FXB, is named after François-Xavier Bagnoud, a helicopter search-and-rescue pilot who died in 1986 while serving as a transport pilot in Mali during the Paris-Dakar rally. He became the youngest professional Instrument Flight Related (IFR) airplane and helicopter pilot in Europe at age 23. Bagnoud was involved in over 300 rescue missions as part of Sion, Switzerland's Air Glaciers.

In 1989, along with the help of family and friends, Albina du Boisrouvray founded both the FXB Foundation and FXB International in honor of her late son. In order to finance the operations of both the foundation and NGO, du Boisrouvray sold off three quarters of her business holdings, as well as paintings, pre-Columbian gold and silver objects, and her country home near Paris, raising $100 million.

Du Boisrouvray allocated part of the profits to the FXB Foundation to create programs, including an at home palliative care program for the terminally ill in Switzerland and France, a rescue helicopter control centre in the Swiss Alps, and a professorship at the University of Michigan (her son's alma mater). With the other half of the funds generated, du Boisrouvray founded FXB International, a development organization. As a reflection of "the values of generosity and compassion that guided François's life", the organization was initially created to support children affected by AIDS.

In November 1989, Albina du Boisrouvray and FXB, in partnership with Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), successfully lobbied the United Nations in to adopt the Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 1989 by organizing a symbolic sailing voyage, retracing the former slave route with 15 children of different ethnicities.

In 1991, working with a group of Thai activists, Albina du Boisrouvray and Médecins du Monde freed several dozen underage sex workers, including eight HIV-positive Burmese girls from a brothel in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Du Boisrouvray then discovered other girls were being trafficked to brothels in Ranong in western Thailand near the south tip of Burma. She informed Saisuree Chutikul, a Thai cabinet minister, who in turn instructed Thai police to raid the brothels. This raid freed 270 women, including 95 Burmese sex workers, half of whom were HIV-positive. In order to ensure the group’s safety and guarantee that they would receive medical and psychosocial support, du Boisrouvray traveled to Burma.


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