PARIS — Balenciaga and the Kering Foundation have partnered with U.S.-based association National Children’s Alliance for a three-year program, the fashion organizations said Wednesday.
The partnership will have three main focuses, including the training of nearly 2,000 mental health professionals to support survivors; providing education to the French fashion company on child protection and ways to promote child safety and well-being, and raising public awareness of the issues.
The partnership stemmed from the advertising scandal in late 2022 that saw the French fashion house, creatives involved in the visuals and even its famous fans engulfed in a wave of outrage.
At the time, the fashion house’s president and chief executive officer Cédric Charbit had sketched out major changes in Balenciaga’s “content organization,” vowed to go on a “listening tour” with child protection groups, and to set aside “a significant fund for grants to organizations so that we can help make a difference in protecting children.”
Commenting on the partnership, the NCA’s chief executive officer Teresa Huizar said that receiving “evidence-based, trauma-focused mental health treatment” could “mean the difference between life and death” for those affected, given the “strong correlation between childhood trauma and negative health effects.”
This is “why Balenciaga’s and the Kering Foundation’s support for this program is so urgently needed,” she continued.
The newly trained mental health professionals will serve an estimated 55,000 children over the three-year program, according to the organizations.
According to Kering’s chief sustainability and institutional affairs officer Marie-Claire Daveu, the fashion group started supporting children affected by abuse in Europe in 2019, as a result of its 15-year work combating violence against women. “During this time, we discovered another reality: the intersection between violence against women and violence against children,” she stated.
The foundation is already working with La Maison des Femmes, an intake program part of the French hospital system which serves women in Paris and surrounding areas, and Face à l’Inceste, a French child protection association dedicated to combating incest.
Source: WWD