The Fondation de France Has Committed 28 of the 44.4 Million Euros in Donations for Mayotte

About 28 million euros had already been committed by early October out of the 44.4 million in private donations the Fondation de France raised after Cyclone Chido, according to Mayotte Hebdo. The money has funded associations involved in rebuilding the island.

Karine Meaux heads the Fondation's "major natural disaster emergency unit." She told Mayotte Hebdo in detail how the funds have been used and what remains to be done.

An Unprecedented Fundraising Drive for the Fondation

The Fondation de France is an entirely private organization, created 60 years ago by General De Gaulle and André Malraux. It redistributes its funds only to private non-profit bodies, chiefly associations under the 1901 law.

The appeal for donations was launched after Chido struck in December 2024. Karine Meaux says: "C’est la plus grosse collecte que la Fondation de France n’ait jamais fait dans le cadre des urgences." Most of the donations come from donors in mainland France: companies, individuals, and even children who sold cakes at their school. Most of the money was raised in the first eight weeks.

Life-Saving Emergency Aid First

The first commitments date from the two or three weeks after the cyclone. Until about April, that is until Ramadan, most of the funds went to extreme emergency needs: water, food and necessities. This aid was humanitarian, so there were no conditions for receiving it.

Karine Meaux went to Mayotte about a week after the disaster, on the first flight chartered by the civil security service. In a makeshift vehicle she found on the island, she travelled around the territory to meet the associations helping disaster victims.

The Fondation mainly backed Mahoran associations, which know the population well, so that the money would reach those genuinely in need and to prevent any abuse. According to Mayotte Hebdo, 350 of them have taken part in the rebuilding since the cyclone. The Fondation gives priority to those with little capacity to raise funds themselves.

Sports Clubs and the Environment

Health issues quickly emerged, and the Fondation worked with the civil protection service. It received many requests from village sports clubs. Karine Meaux says she has never seen this elsewhere in 25 years in the job: these clubs handed out food and kept young people occupied to give parents a break.

She also noticed, as soon as she arrived, that many requests concerned nature: cleaning up rivers and replanting forests and mangroves. Many were turned down, because after a major disaster nature must be left to regenerate on its own for a year. Some clean-up work supervised by the ONF and environmental associations was nonetheless carried out, notably with the FMAE and the EDD networks.