In Vincent Tournecuillert's memory
From ARSIS:
The beloved friend and partner, Vincent Tournecuillert, passed away on Wednesday night, at 21/11/2018, after a road accident just a few days earlier.
Vincent, born 46 years ago in France, was a citizen of the world that knew well how to take care of the important things with the deserved passion, to fight for the goals of his humanitarian mission and to succeed them.
He started his professional life as a journalist and always held the research look that characterizes the journalists worthy of their function. After covering as journalist the wars in the Balkans and Africa, he used to work with non-governmental organizations in various parts of the world for about two decades: Iraq, Bosnia, Yemen, Albania, Morocco, Belgium and Budapest at the end. Wherever he lived, wherever he acted, he was tempted by a deep and genuine longing to understand and respect the ways, the times, and the hardships of the ordinary people he had chosen to work with. With pure scientific and political thought, with knowledge and empathy, he tried to improve the lives of the more vulnerable people among the vulnerable ones.
He worked closely with ARSIS, in particular between 2001 and 2009, when he moved to Albania and then to Budapest. He significantly contributed on understanding and dealing against the trafficking of children from Albania and other Balkan countries to Greece. Our collaboration continued to nowadays too. We have built together for many years, hand by hand, a protection network for trafficked and smuggled children, we have enriched our knowledge and practices with regard to the protection of the child and the defense of his/her rights. Working for a great and respected organization for the protection of the child’s rights, the Terre des Hommes NGO, he broadly shared his knowledge and experience by supporting his daily work, his colleagues and partners in countries such as Albania, Greece and many others. Close to him we found out that those are seemed impossible to happen can often be done if we try with trust and devotion. Besides of valuable partner and colleague, he knew how to be warm in our personal relationship and how to dedicate enough time that friendship requires, as tired as he was at the end of the day.
We express our deep affliction because a nice young person left, because he was a tireless partner in the struggle for the defense of the children’s rights. We express our condolences to his family members! We will miss him! We will remember him, continuing our efforts for everything he tried…