Albina du Boisrouvray (b. 1941 in Paris) is a former journalist and film producer who has become a global philanthropist and social entrepreneur working with AIDS orphans and vulnerable children around the world. She is a grandchild of the Bolivian King of Tin, Simón Patiño, who was one of the wealthiest men in the world at the time of her birth. She founded the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) in 1989, in memory of her son who had died in 1986.[1] She is godmother to Charlotte Casiraghi, daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco.
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du Boisrouvray was the daughter of Luz Mila Patiño Rodríguez, wife of Guy comte du Boisrouvray (died 1980) and married firstly Swiss Bruno Bagnoud and secondly Georges Casati, and had issue by first marriage:
After working variously as a model, actress and freelance journalist, she established a film production company in 1969 and is credited with producing eleven movies. These include Fort Saganne (1984), directed by Alain Corneau and starring Gérard Depardieu.[2]
In financing the establishment of the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud in 1989, she sold a large part of her assets. These included a jewelry collection auctioned by Sotheby's in New York for $31.2 million, an art collection of $20 million, and a substantial part of her family real-estate business which fetched $50 million.[3]
As part of the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud, Albina du Boisrouvray developed FXB International. The mission of FXB International is to fight poverty and AIDS, and support orphans and vulnerable children left in the wake of the AIDS pandemic. FXB International offers comprehensive support to the families and communities that care for these children, and advocates for their fundamental rights.[4] Today, FXB International leads over 100 programs in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and has a staff of over 450.[5]
In 1991, Albina du Boisrouvray funded the Global AIDS Policy Coalition at the Harvard School of Public Health. A year later, the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud announced that it was giving $20 million, its largest gift ever, to establish the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health and to pay for construction of the François-Xavier Bagnoud building in Boston, and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Professorship in Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. [6]
Albina du Boisrouvray also started the FXB Center at the School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which "reaches across traditional boundaries to link research and practice through education". The Center provides clinical care, education, and technical assistance in the United States and globally to support capacity building to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic.[7]
In 2002, Albina du Boisrouvray and FXB International founded World AIDS Orphans Day, "a grassroots campaign to draw attention to and advocate on behalf of the over 15 million children orphaned by AIDS".[8][9]