The Only The Brave Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, born in Veneto, North Italy and operational since 2008. It is the foundation of the Only The Brave Group which gathers under its umbrella brands like Diesel, 55DSL, Maison Martin Margiela and Viktor & Rolf.

The foundation came to life with the purpose of redressing the balance of disadvantaged young people in its local region in North East Italy. As the foundation developed, naturally the main focus shifted to a bigger picture – to the youngest, but most disadvantaged continent in the world: Africa.

The Only The Brave Foundation exists because we are not all born equal. Because there are people unjustly disadvantaged all over the world, trapped and paralyzed by circumstance. Young people like you The Only The Brave Foundation gives them the means to help build themselves a new future.

Manifesto

• We believe there is a better way to end extreme poverty in Africa.
• We believe that brands can be more powerful than governments.
• We believe that creativity should be a force for good by challenging the rules.
• We believe in brave answers. Less talk. An end to parachuting in aid.
• We believe in helping Africans help themselves out of extreme poverty.
• We believe we can leave behind a better world than the one we inherited.
• We believe a tribe without frontiers, with a shared vision that crosses all boundaries of geography, colour and creed, is unstoppable.
• We believe we’ll get some things wrong. We will learn from them and they’ll make us better and more effective in our fight.
• We believe it’s a huge task and one that can only be tackled with a change of approach, a new way.

Projects
The Only The Brave Foundation supports and develops a variety of innovative projects, each tackling issues either holistically or from new sideways angles.

Whether in the form of funding, cooperation, advice, or staff mobilization, the Only The Brave Foundation works in liaison with numerous internal and external collaborators.

A local non-profit association, NGO, Social Entrepreneur... the Only The Brave Foundation relies on the expertise of the organizations it works with to implement concrete actions and development programs to the benefit of disadvantaged people.

The Only The Brave Foundation contributes its expertise and advises all the brands and companies belonging to the Only The Brave Group on issues of solidarity commitments, as well as coordinating their initiatives in favour of disadvantaged people.

The Village
The village of Dioro is within a cluster of Villages around Tiby, in Mali. The communities of 20,000 within that full cluster are working with the Millennium Villages Project ™ to undertake an ambitious, unprecedented and integrated development effort. The Only the Brave Foundation has selected the Millennium Villages Project as its flagship initiative, with their support directed to benefit the work in Dioro. The Millennium Villages Project ™ applies a unique, integrated, innovative model to rural development, empowering communities to lift themselves out of extreme poverty.

With the help of new advances in science and technology, local staff members work with villages to create and implement low cost, sustainable, community-led action plans that are tailored to the villages’ specific needs and designed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).