Travelettes » » Art in All of Us – promoting cultural exchange

It’s rare that I meet someone who makes me travel envious as I think I’ve managed to accumulate a fair amount of passport stamps and international experiences for my 26 years as a Travelette but then I made the mistake of having coffee with Anthony!

As my morning coffee revealed, Anthony is amongst the very few who can say that they have been to every single country in the world! But this isn’t the simple tale of a lucky backpacker who managed to get around the world in 7 years (with god knows how many passports, stamps and visas to show for it) – it’s the inspirational travel story of someone who has left a lasting positive impact in every single place he has visited with his NGO: Art in All of Us.

Anthony and his girlfriend Stephanie founded the NGO seven years ago in order to promote tolerance and cultural exchanges around the world. The aim is to reach children in every one of the 193 UN member countries using art and photography as the sole methods of communication. They hope to enrich the lives of children by inspiring them to create a portal through which they can look at each other’s lives thus increasing understanding and tolerance across the world.

They travel from country to country, school to school, running workshops on art, poetry and photography with children. Afterwards they set up art exchanges between schools in totally different countries and regions in order to help children to communicate directly and creatively with other children across borders regardless of race, religion, social background etc. To date more than 155,000 children have participated in the program thanks to a combination of passion, practice, perseverance, and patience.

In addition to their amazing work in the field, Anthony and Stephanie are also incredibly talented photographers and have captured their journey across 193 countries in over 200,000 images (which they also sell to fund further activities with the NGO). So without even leaving the comfort of your own living room you can travel round the world and experience a little bit of the joy they are spreading, and who knows maybe it will even inspire you into action.

To find more about their project check out their website here or to see more photos look here. Finally, AiA have an exhibition Si tous les enfants du Monde… showing photographs from their adventures at the Marni Theatre in Brussels running until the end of June – it’s well worth a look.

If you’re interested in finding our more about travelling for a cause & volunteering/charity work check out some of our other posts; here, here, here and here.

This post was written by Lorna Stokes, part of the travelettes team from 2009 to 2013.

Originally from the UK but currently based in Brussels after stints in Canada, Peru, Italy and a job for the French military, she’s always had an unquenchable thirst for exploring new places! She’s still travelling the world with her family so catch up with her adventures on Instagram & Twitter.