Friends of the Middle East

National Network
France
Address

21, rue Pierre Semard
94120 FONTENAY SOUS BOIS
France

Telephone
0637832581
E-Mail
friendsofthemiddleeast@gmail.com
Organisation Type
Non-Governmental Organization
Year of Establishment
2016
Fields of Activity
  1. Arts
  2. Environment/Sustainable development
  3. International/Cultural relations
  4. Media
  5. Youth and education
General Information
Friends of the Middle East is an apolitical and areligious french association (loi 1901), also based in Lebanon through its implementing partner Arc en Ciel. It was co-founded by four people, three French and one Syrian, now surrounded by 9 active members and a community of 30 connectors in 16 countries. From social media videos to documentary films, we create, produce and broadcast audiovisual contents supporting our mission to share anticlichés and inspiring insights about the region’s people. We build communities and organize meetups to share knowledge and engage citizens in concrete actions.
Mission and Objectives

MISSION:
Develop the knowledge on the Middle East, Maghreb & foster the understanding of real people's life experiences.
OBJECTIVES:
- Reduce the fear of the Other by providing knowledge, facts and life experiences insights.
- Increase the understanding of Maghreb & Middle East’s cultures
- Build intercultural bridges & experiences to show how we can live together with our differences
- Build a community of worldwide citizens supporting this mission
- Build a broasdcasting network to optimize audiovisual contents’ potential of impact

Main Projects / Activities

DOCUMENTARIES
CREATION - DIRECTION - PRODUCTION

Our Social Enterprise :
We create high-quality videos & documentaries telling the stories of real people from the region. We design distribution impact plans & we work with all kinds of actors.

Our first length-documentary project (video teaser here):
We are developing a documentary project about arab social entrepreneurs & changemakers. It is telling the inspirational quest

COMMUNITIES
ENGAGEMENT - DISTRIBUTION
We are building engaged communities all over the world to support our mission, the documentary distribution and to create a wider impact. Our own community is made of 30 connectors in 16 countries, they can connect us to key potential actors in their country and organize activities with our programs.

MEETUPS
EDUCATION - ACTION
We design and organize meetups to gahter people and deal with key thematics of the region through Middle Eastern people's life experiences. 8 meetups already took place in Paris, Lyon & Beirut (800 Meetup members).

How can you contribute to the Network in your country?

We can connect actors to the regional social entrepreneurship ecosystem in sub-mediterranean countries.
We can connect actors to film technicians and producers in different countries of the region (Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, UAE...)
We can facilitate conferences / events on social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship in the region and intercultural dialogue.
We can recommend artists and documentaries about several topics related to the region.
We are open to co-create activities with any organization sharing a common vision with us in order to support our respective missions and create a bigger impact.

Why do you want to join the ALF Network?

We want to collaborate with actors involved in intercultural to co-create our events in different cities (Paris, Lyon, Beirut, + other cities in sub-mediterranean countries or France).
We believe in collaboration, impact scaling up through partnerships and in opportunities generation through regional networking.
We are convinced that we can make a greater change by working with existing actors, knowing about their missions and activities, to not engage our activities on the same sectors.
We also think we can add value to the other actors' activities by telling their stories, the stories of their beneficiaries etc. Being part of ALF Network will make it possible for them to collaborate with a production house sharing the same values.
 

Contact (1) Full Name
Thomas Vailleux
Job Title
Co-founder - External Relations
Head of the organisation
Roman Olivier-Foy
Contact (2) Full Name
Roman-Olivier Foy
Job Title (2)
Co-founder - President