The ADF Foundation for Sustainable Development is a non-profit entity. The Spanish State has recognized us as an entity whose purposes are of general interest.

We work with an illusion: to use our skills and our time to achieve a fairer and healthier world. Development is essential, but it must be sustainable.

Arturo de Frías

Our President, has moved on from a successful 3-decade-long career in the business world to dedicate himself, body and soul, to the Foundation. For many years, his favorite phrase has been "True happiness is in giving, not in receiving." In the last 10 years, Arturo has dedicated much of his time to a project that has generated more than 150,000 euros in donations to help the most vulnerable children in Spain. Arturo has degrees in Law and Economics, and his great passion is nature photography, which he uses in favor of Conservation.

Teresa Carazo

Our Managing Director, has felt solidarity since her youth, and has dedicated her entire professional career (which now spans more than 30 years) to working for others, in solidarity and international cooperation projects. This commitment has led her to live a large part of his life outside of Spain, leading cooperation projects in countries such as Colombia, Guatemala, Bolivia, Haiti, Angola, Mozambique, or Pakistan. Teresa has a degree in Law and is an expert in migration issues and asylum law.

 

Our board is diverse and hugely experienced: five women and five men with many decades of accumulated experience, in all key areas: solidarity, cooperation, inmigration, financial, legal and organizational.

 

➔ OUR MISSION

We work towards a more sustainable development model.

➔ OUR VISION

We want to help build a better, fairer world (with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as a reference).

➔ OUR FOCUS

We want to develop projects only in three areas, in which we have huge experience:

  • Rural Development

  • Vulnerable People

  • Conservation of Nature and Climate Change

 

Our projects

During 2022, we will only develop three projects, one in each of our areas of expertise. Again, we feel that focus is of utmost importance, and is critical to improve our chance of making a difference. These three projects are:

➔ Rural Development

We are providing financial and technical support to a number of rural developments in the State of Bolivar, in Colombia. We expect to support at least 150 young men and women, and their families, to launch successful rural developments; modern, profitable, and respectful with the environment. We will work together with a number of local NGOs, in the context of much wider cooperation projects, run with the support of the European Union and several Spanish cooperation institutions.

➔ Vulnerable People

We want to invest in Education, as a means to reduce inequality and the risk of social exclusion. We will hire expert educators, who will support public schools in some of the most complex neighborhoods. In this project, we will work hand by hand with SOS Childrens’ Villages, one of the leading NGOs in the world supporting children in need, in more than 150 countries.

➔ Conservation of Nature and Climate Change

We want to use the unlimited potential of photography as a vehicle for raising awareness, in order to accelerate change towards a more sustainable relationship between humankind and the planet. We will publish a nature photography book, with extraordinary images and text from leading nature photographers, from Europe and the Americas. We expect these extraordinary images to stir conflicting emotions: rapture and horror; joy and grief. Such a paradox is designed to provoke debate and incite the need for positive change. Hence, each photo will be EVIDENCE of the beauty or the destruction of our natural world, and each photographer will have been a witness, revealing the contradictions and dilemmas facing our modern existence. Factual education is the best motivation for creating change, because it is difficult to make sacrifices for a cause without fully understanding the risks of doing nothing at all.

➔ These three projects have a combined budget of c100,000 euros in 2022, and we expect this to increase to c300,000 euros by 2025.

We need your help! If you want to contribute to these projects, with donations, with your knowledge, or with your time, please:


And if you want to buy the nature photography books already published by Arturo, please visit his online shop. All the proceeds from book sales will be received directly by the Foundation.

Thank you!!

(and remember: there is no Planet B)