Brazil

Official visit 22 – 23 December 2008

Three weeks after being appointed ambassadress for the World AIDS fund, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy took advantage of the visit of the French Head of State to Brazil to explain some of the initiatives behind her work. Monday December 22, 2008. While Nicolas Sarkozy and his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva chaired a meeting of local and European business managers, France’s First Lady went to the Fernandes Figuera Institute. Connected to the Pasteur Institute, this Oswaldo Cruz Foundation center houses a breast milk bank: 115,000 women donate their milk to give it out to mothers who carry HIV/AIDS. 140,000 children benefit from the program. “Carla Bruni will greatly improve our visibility,” declared Dr Joao Aprigio. Tuesday 23 December 2008. After a concert on the previous day by the ex-minister for Culture Gilberto Gil (who sang Touche pas à mon pote [Don't touch my friend] an allusion to the symbolic SOS Racism slogan), the children sang tanti auguri a te [happy birthday] to Carla Bruni, who had come on her 41st birthday to the Pavao-Pavaozinho favela. Perched on the hills of Copacabana, this shantytown is home to 20,000 people including 8,000 children.  A program — fittingly called Criança Esperança (Children Hope) — works with UNESCO and TV Globo to take the young Cariocas away from poverty and drug dealing. In a little garden, accompanied by about fifty children, Carla Bruni planted a cutting of a Pau Brasil, the flame colored tree which gave its name to the country. “Planting a tree is symbolic, whereas the favelas are eating away at the forest. Young people must be made aware of the importance of preserving our environment“, said Vincent de Fourny, director of UNESCO Brazil. Before meeting up with her father Mauricio Remmert (who lives in Brazil), the former model attended a fashion parade for the ModaFusion collection. The models were wearing clothes made from organically produced cotton, bamboo and fibers from recycled plastic bottles.