This Monday (5-3-07) Janou & Laurens from the Dutch office, were present at the opening of World Portraits by Princess Maxima of the Netherlands.

So you may ask: What is World Portraits?
World Portraits is a fair trade photo collection of people from around the world.
The beauty and uniqueness of World Portraits is that the person photographed can share in the profits. Every time a photo is sold, the person in question will receive a royalty.

It is the first, worldwide initiative that ensures that people, wherever they are in the world, receive money every time their photo is published. In third world countries, models receive their money via micro banking facilities or as a cheque.

The people that are photographed are not professional models, but ordinary people that sign a model release contract on the spot.

All World Portraits photos can be ordered and downloaded at the usual rates from www.anp-photo.com or visit the official website: www.world-portraits.com

So you may ask as well: what were Janou & Laurens doing there?
Well, we were present because Projects Abroad made it possible in 3 of our destinations (Mongolia, Bolivia & Peru) to take pictures for World Portraits. These pictures were either shot in our projects, or at places where our colleagues have contacts.

The photographer (Robin van Utrecht) thanked Projects Abroad in his opening speech and particularly loved his time in the prison in Bolivia – normally not open for “public” and he thought it was amazing to be able to photograph some of the unique characters there – and yes the inmates also get money whenever their picture is used worldwide. A lot of his pictures, made because of our combined work, are in stock and for sale through World Portraits.

So again a big thanks to the destinations Robin went to, and already a big thanks for the coming destinations, as Cambodia, Ghana and others are on their wish list to visit too.

Note: Because of our time and effort for World Portraits, the people running World Portraits are now trying to get our “King to be” (Willem-Alexander van Oranje) and his princess Maxima to visit our projects in India, when they will visit India this year. Hopefully to be continued.