On 4 March 2018 the Naked Heart Foundation, set up by Guerlain makeup and Shalimar fragrance muse Natalia Vodianova, joined forces with Guerlain to take part in the 21km Paris run.

Among the foundation’s friends and supporters was influencer Camila Coelho, who led the team to raise funds for Vodianova’s charity. This year’s fundraising goal was to empower “Summer with Purpose” project and organise much needed integrative summer camps for hundreds of children and young adults with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) across Russia.

Since 2015, thanks to the support of Guerlain and the charity’s volunteers, who fundraised for the same cause, the Naked Heart Foundation was able to conduct a unique training programme for provincial Russian NGO specialists and support the organisation of 15 summer camps for children with ASD. As a result, over 400 families were able to send their children to a summer or autumn camp, and 273 specialists learned to use modern, evidence-based methods of work. You can find out more about last year’s ‘Summer with purpose’ here.

Every March for nine years running, la Maison Guerlain and the Naked Heart Foundation, have been joining forces to put together a team of dozens of runners to participate in the Paris Half Marathon. The team includes Guerlain and Naked Heart Foundation staff and a number of volunteers, who selflessly raise money for the charity’s work with children with special needs. Natalia, who has successfully completed several Paris Half Marathons in the past, personally greeted all the team members at the finish line. Her eldest son Lucas Portman also took part in the event with the Naked Heart and Guerlain representatives.

After the race the Naked Heart Foundation and Guerlain team celebrated their results at an intimate party in an amazing Victoria Paris restaurant.

Integrative summer camps play an important role in the physical, mental and intellectual development of children and young people with special needs. “Summer with Purpose” project also includes a unique training programme, developed by the Foundation in collaboration with leading experts from the University of New Mexico and aimed specifically at NGO professionals who had been selected to create developmental recreation opportunities. The results of the project were evaluated highly by the experts at the Camp Rising Sun (Center for Development and Disability, University of New Mexico) who supervised the training of the specialists, and by members of the regional NGOs who took part in the project. The collaborative project also received “Eleanor P Eels Award for Program Excellence” by American Camp Association (ACA).

There’s still time to make a donation to Natalia or any of the other runners on the team’s official fundraising page here.

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