10th Anniversary Michael-Rudolph-Fund

 Dear friends and family,

10 years ago today, my Dad died so suddenly and tragically in that terrible accident. Not a day goes by when I don't think of him and wish I could show or tell him something. There are so many things I wish I could have shared or shown him: my Master's degree in 2017, our own house and growing garden in 2018, our little son Max in 2019 and all his wonderfulness over the last four and a half years, my art project with the British Museum in 2021 and the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2022, other exhibitions and smaller projects, and this summer a family visit from Mom and my sister Judith with family.

I would like to finally send you a report on the Michael-Rudolph-Fund on this 10th anniversary of his death. I had actually planned to write a report every year, but somehow I've been avoiding it all these years and I didn't want it to become a burden for me. Our initial foundation idea didn't quite go according to plan; it turned out to be incredibly complicated to set up a foundation in Paraguay. In addition, Mom understandably didn't feel up to submitting a quarterly official account statement and being scrutinized for possible money laundering, which appears to be a big issue in Paraguay.

Instead, we decided to manage the Michael-Rudolph-Fund privately within the family and donate the interest from the savings account privately every year. Initially, our idea was to pay the school fees for several indigenous high school students, which was possible thanks to our contact with Verena Regehr (a family friend and anthropologist with close contacts to indigenous communities). However, the school fees were taken over by a larger foundation shortly afterwards. We then supported indigenous teacher training students at Yalve Sanga for several years until these costs were also covered by the larger foundation. After that, there was a lack of support for the salary of a local indigenous teacher at a new school where the 7th-8th grades were introduced so that the children could live at home with their families for longer before they had to go to boarding school for further education. After two years, the Paraguayan Ministry of Education finally took over the teacher's salary. For one year, we sent monthly financial support to an Ayoreo student in Asunción who was studying law but unfortunately ended up dropping out. Indigenous students face incredible barriers (inadequate primary and secondary education, insufficient Spanish language skills for university, culture shock and high living costs in the city, no social network in the city or an indigenous student hostel that could provide support, etc.). As we have not really arrived at a specific project for our support and since the Paraguayan school system for indigenous children also seems problematic to us in many respects (such as the contribution to cultural loss, assimilation, colonization history, loss of own culture and language), we decided to financially support the work of linguist Hannes Kalisch for the last two years, as he has done real decolonization work with his efforts to preserve the Enlhet and Guaná languages, and the publications of the accounts of Enlhet elders, which have also strongly influenced my own work in recent years. We felt we had finally found the right cause for our financial support. We were shocked and deeply saddened when Hannes died unexpectedly of cancer last year. It pains us that he is no longer with us to continue his valuable work. 

We have decided to donate the interest from this year and next year's Michael-Rudolph-Fund to indigenous artists from the Chaco. We are planning a joint exhibition in April 2025 in Asunción at the Museo del Barro and the Fundación Migliorisi, in which all the participants who took part in the 2021 project with the British Museum - myself, Lanto'oy' Unruh and the members of the indigenous artists' collective Artes Vivas - will take part. Our money will be used for travel, accommodation and meals for the indigenous artists from the Chaco during the exhibition set-up and the opening. 

We will have to see how the Michael-Rudolph-Fund continues after that. There is much need all over the country, but on the one hand our annual sum of around 6,000,000 guaranies (CAD$1,100) in interest is rather modest and on the other hand it should also be used in the spirit of Dad's life and being. If you have any ideas, please feel free to share them with us!

We still feel closely connected to you after all these years and thank you for your contribution to the Michael-Rudolph-Fund, which, even if only on a small scale, allows Dad's work to live on a little. 

Yours sincerely,
Miriam Rudolph (and Maria Rudolph)