Children, Art, and a Helicopter


Welcome to Kinderbaum (children's tree), a Swiss foundation supported by the international world of art. This innovative foundation strives to help disadvantaged children throughout the world by constructing orphanages. Kinderbaum offers its services to all children of the world regardless of their culture or religion. Furthermore, it is very important to the founder that the staff should be ethnically and religiously diverse. The children will therefore be taught not only to respect but also to tolerate the wide range of differences inherent amongst human beings throughout the world. 

Kinderbaum will build a Safari Lodge in addition to the children's village. This Lodge offers its visitors an experience of the unique South-African wildlife. It also provides an additional source of income and opportunities for the children.

First of all, all profits from this Safari Lodge support directly the children. Furthermore, its vicinity to the children's village will provide an opportunity for the children to acquire various professional skills. The latter will then enable them to pursue an independent life. Finally, the Safari Lodge will provide visitors with an opportunity to help the children in any appropriate way. 

The 49th Biennale of Venice
The director of the last Biennale of Venice, Harald Szeemann, offered one of his largest exhibition spaces to Michael Schmitz, the founder of Kinderbaum. The work that Schmitz supplied was a ten meter helicopter placed within the branches of an 18 x 8 x 6 meters leafless iron tree. This work not only had the honor of appearing between the artwork of the renowned artists, Richard Serra and Vanessa Beecroft, but was even displayed for the first time in front of a wide public and over 8,000 journalists. This tree that Schmitz created symbolizes the Kinderbaum foundation, which means "children's tree", and during the five months that the tree was displayed it flowered as leaves were attached onto its many branches for every donation of art and money. All donations are published on our web site: www.kinderbaum.org. 

Your Leaf on the Kinderbaum
In order to successfully complete our project, we depend very much on the donations from especially generous artists and other kind members of the "art society". Our artworks will first be exhibited in Rome. Soon after, the donated artworks will be auctioned off for the children's village. Thus we may begin funding our fledgling program.

We are looking forward to all kind of donations money or art and volunteer work. They will surely be published on our web site. Help us with your donation to flower the Kinderbaum. For further questions don't hesitate to contact us. More information you are going to find on our home page under how can I help.

Children Village in Mpumalanga, South Africa
Michael Schmitz, the founder of Kinderbaum, chose the town of Mpumalanga as the pilot location for this ingenious project as South Africa has recently shown its willingness to adopt the attitude that is strongly encouraged in our future villages. On April 27th 1994, known as "Freedom Day", South Africa adopted a bill enfranchising all races and endorsing tolerance and respect between people of different race, culture, and religion. In the same way, Kinderbaum greatly encourages this very same ideal amongst all of the orphans who will live in the villages. Kinderbaum will happily provide the basis for any person interested in contributing to the development of the project in any way they see fit, adding their very own leaf to the tree. For more information, please see the link how can I help at our web site. 


Global-Heli-Art-Tour
Michael Schmitz will undertake a helicopter trip around the world in order to collect any additional artwork and money for the further funding of the project. He will travel 50 000 nautical miles, subdivided into various stretches. He will first leave Rome in July 2002 and fly all the way to Greece, over to Turkey, across the Middle Eastern and over the desert, carrying on to the Far East, and finally landing in Australia after eight weeks of travel. The second stretch will begin in Canada in the summer of 2003. He will traverse the United States, fly on towards Central America, and finally cross into South America. In the autumn of 2003, he will leave Africa and land in Europe ending the Global-Heli-Art-Tour in the spring of 2004. Finally, he will end this world around trip with a flight across Europe ending in the year of 2004. 

While not being on the Global-Heli-Art-Tour, Dr. Dr. Michael Schmitz M.D. D.M.D., a German dentist specialized in cosmetic dentistry and implantology living in Rome, will be occupied with both his patients and the Kinderbaum foundation. He will supply his own helicopter, and fully provide for all expenses necessary throughout the 50 000 miles expedition.

All of the proceeds from the art and money donations will go directly to the children villages. his trip will not in any way extricate funds for the children. Michael Schmitz's personal involvement is an attempt to accelerate the realization of the Kinderbaum foundation's project in South Africa. 
We hope to have aroused your interest in our project and encourage you to visit our website.


Your Kinderbaum Team