The Matthiesen Foundation is a small registered charity with a wide reaching scope encompassing the relief of poverty, medical assistance and famine relief, small scale educational projects, environmental and conservation and heritage work, culture and the arts. It is specifically concerned with the Fine Arts, education, children, music and the environment. In 1999 it provided the seed money for environmental projects in Peruvian Amazonia which educated impoverished young children of native extraction to respect and preserve the environment. Clean water and sanitation was an additional scope of these projects which were called The Children’s Forest. These initial projects carried out with A.N.I.A. evolved into The Children’s Lands, a concept that has been promoted across several continents and which has won a prestigious U.N.E.S.C.O. award for outstanding excellence. This Foundation has paid for manuals promoting this concept to outsiders and has placed them open access on the web. Each year this Foundation has sponsored two to three individual projects in Peru and latterly in Ecuador and Costa Rica. The governments of Peru and Ecuador incorporated the concepts of these projects into all their schools. Over the years the Foundation has been active in the following areas: 

1981 The conservation of frescoes in Solofra, Italy damaged by earthquake.
1983 Support for The Friends of the Fitzwilliam museum
1984 Fund raising on behalf of The Courtauld Institute of Art
1985. Famine relief in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
1986 Support for The National Arts Collection Fund
1987 Support for Aids Crisis Trust
1989 Support for Medecins Sans Frontieres
1990 – 1992 Hospital rebuilding and medical support in Cambodia in association with MSF
1992-2000 Various Symposia and Lectures at The National Gallery, London
1996 Support for The Arthritis and Rheumatism Council
2001-2006 The El Bosque de los Ninos project in the Peruvian Amazon
2003 A Publication for better Alimentation and cookery for the population in Tambopata
2004 The Esse Eja native medicinal plant and health manual
2006 Bolivian edition of the Esse Eja plant and health manual
2006 & 2007 Concerto di Fine d’Estate a Rollo di Andora on behalf of MSF and Darfur and Somalia 
2007 The Manual for the El Bosque project for diffusion across S. America
2007 Second Concerto di Fine d’Estate on behalf of MSF and the children of Darfur. Music sponsorship
2007-2008 Construction of a micro hydro-electric power scheme at Chambamontera, Jaen district, northern Peru in conjunction with Practical Action and the Orbis Pictus Trust; Sponsorship of a pilot scheme ‘Children’s Forest’ for paraplegic children.
2009 Extension of the Chambomontera micro hydro electric scheme to El Eden; music sponsorship; sponsorship at the National Gallery, London; sponsorship of ANIA Peru 2010-2011 Two Children’s Lands projects in Ica province Peru. That at Santa Cruz has become a “show scheme”. English, Spanish and Portuguese illustrated instruction manuals in three volumes for creating Children’s Land. These are downloadable on line:
Manual 1
Manual 2
Manual 3
2012 Sponsorship for the catalogue raisonne on Goltzius; sponsorship of the National Gallery of Victoria; Sponsorship Harrow School Development Trust sculpture court; sponsorship for the Pantin library, Oriel College; further sponsorship of ugraded Micro Hydro electric scheme, Chambomontera, Peru. The Children’s Lands didactic project at The Lima Natural History Museum. 2013 Restoration sponsorship at St Mary’s, Patrixbourne; sponsorship at ENO and London Southbank Sinfonia. 
2013 – 2018 The Foundation engaged in the following projects among others:- Restoration of the organ at St.Mark’s, London NW8; A Children’s Lands didactic project at the Lima Botanical Gardens, the projects in the Lima favelas and two projects near Iquitos, Amazonia; an agriculture support programme for farmers in northern Cambodia; the completion of the restoration of the twelfth century rose window in Patrixbourne, Kent; sponsorship for the Nash & Nevinson exhibition in Dulwich; the sponsorship of the final volume of the catalogue of the collection in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; the Open Access re-edition of The Children’s Lands instruction manuals on the web. 
The PDF’s below are 10mb each in size and may take a few sconds to open. 
A SUSTAINABLE WORLD Sponsorship of concerts in Florence and Arezzo for young musicians, sponsorship of English Touring Opera, the Handel Festival and La Serenissima in the UK as well as a dedicated seats in the Royal Academy of Music’s new auditorium in memory of Jascha Heifetz, violinist extraordinary and Edwin Fischer, pianist. The current project for delivery in 2019 is the construction of a Kirkman 1787 two manual harpsichord for the National Gallery, London to compliment the Bluthner concert grand donated in 2016. 
NATURES GREATEST GIFT – THE CHILDREN’S LANDS 
A NEW ENGLISH LANGUAGE MANUAL FOR KIDS – THE CHILDREN’S LANDS