Fondazione Pesenti supports Flying Angels Foundation (FAF), a non-profit organization specialized in organizing air transport for critically ill children to hospitals equipped to provide life-saving surgeries and specialized medical care. FAF also coordinates flights for medical teams to travel to developing countries to carry out health missions.
Since 2023, the Foundation has been committed to supporting the three-year project “Flying Towards the Right to Health”, with the goal of organizing and funding life-saving flights for critically ill children. The project also aims to strengthen the solidarity network to which FAF belongs—composed primarily of partner non-profit organizations, doctors, and hospitals—by focusing on two key areas: access to care and capacity building. The project works to streamline the process of managing each child’s case and assess its impact.
Koko Maire upon return and Meghan in hospital
First Year of the Project: Initial Results
In its first year, the project enabled assistance for 38 critically ill children by organizing and funding round-trip travel for them and one parent from their home country to the destination hospital. These children came from ten countries: Albania, Burundi, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Uganda, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. Specifically, there were 28 trips from abroad to Italy and 10 between foreign countries.
Six non-profit organizations (NPOs) were involved: Il Castello dei Sorrisi (Verona), Cuore Fratello (Milan), Associazione KIM, Emergenza Sorrisi, Fondazione Insè (Rome), Una Voce per Padre Pio (Naples).
Together with these organizations, preliminary steps were taken to build a coalition and a manifesto campaign (scheduled for May 2024) focused on international healthcare cooperation and improving access to medical care in Italy for children living abroad.
In addition to improving access to care, the project also addressed capacity building. This included an initial mapping of the cross-cutting skills within the partner NPOs, identifying key areas for development such as fundraising, communication, data collection, and impact measurement. Tailored training programs were subsequently designed.
Aligned with FAF’s recent digital initiatives, work also began on optimizing the Application platform used to report children in need of funded flights. This platform is being improved to better match each child with specific donors willing to purchase flight tickets, ensuring maximum transparency in how funds are raised and used.
Amon and Eliora
INSIGHTS