We don’t want to leave anyone behind. For this reason on 1 May in Italy we launched an in-house online fundraiser to help Enel Cuore Onlus support specific socially useful projects linked to the Covid-19 emergency and promoted by five voluntary organisations. The initiative concluded on 30 June having raised more than 1 million euro, thanks to the generosity of employees, managers and board members. Donors were able to choose between five projects that aim to help society’s most vulnerable as they return to their activities and reintegration into their relative social contexts. Enel Cuore will be matching the amount raised, thus allocating more than 2 million euro based on the donors’ preferences concerning the five voluntary associations’ projects.
These are:
- Caritas Italiana, for the project to counter the health, social and economic crisis affecting individuals and families that are experiencing extreme poverty, through its network of “Empori Solidali” and services to distribute necessities such as food as well as home and hygiene products;
- Comunità di Sant'Egidio ACAP Onlus, with the boosting of the existing “Viva gli Anziani” (“Long Live the Elderly”) project that provides assistance to the elderly in their own homes, particularly for everyday needs and to ensure they don’t often have to go out (delivering shopping and meals to their homes, collecting medical prescriptions, distributing necessities, providing transport services to urgent or important appointments);
- FISH (Federazione Italiana Superamento Handicap, “The Italian Federation for Overcoming Handicap”) for the “COVID-19 Per le persone con disabilità insieme si può!” (For people with disabilities, together we can!) project that involves a programme of integrated interventions to help mitigate the effects of the emergency and the consequences of the post-emergency phase, which is especially critical for those with disabilities. In particular, to ensure they continue to receive medicines and rehabilitation services, to provide individual and family-based psychological support, to help individuals continue with everyday activities such as education, and food shopping;
- Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus (Food Bank), for the project to support people at risk of food poverty, ensuring the supplies to voluntary associations and families by upgrading the distribution network for foodstuffs, especially in the central and southern parts of the country;
- The National Federation of Nursing Professions (FNOPI) to contribute to the solidarity fund #NoiConGliInfermieri (#we’rewiththenurses) that provides physical and psychological support to nurses that have fallen ill because of their work, and to provide economic and social support to their families.
Enel Cuore’s commitment to Italy
Since the start of the Covid-19 emergency, our non-profit organisation has been on the ground with a 23 million euro donation programme to help the main organisations working on the front line to combat the pandemic here in Italy.
The aid covers a very broad spectrum of healthcare emergency activities: from support to the Civil Protection agency and hospital facilities to voluntary and local government organisations.
The first tranche of funds was allocated to more urgent work in Lombardy, to support the Fondo di Mutuo Soccorso (Mutual Assistance Fund) set up by the Milan City Council, the new hospital at Fiera Milano and the San Raffaele Hospital to create a dedicated area for patients requiring respiratory support while awaiting transfer to Covid-19 departments.
In the Province of Bergamo, Enel Cuore worked alongside the Fondazione Humanitas per la Ricerca (the Humanitas Research Foundation) in an innovative project to tackle the growing need for beds at the Humanitas Gavazzeni Hospital, by locating new structures where stabilised and asymptomatic Covid-19 patients unable to self-isolate at home could be accommodated.
Enel Cuore’s work has also encompassed many other Italian regions. In Emilia-Romagna, for example, funds were donated to the local health and safety organisation and the regional Civil Protection Department for new intensive care beds and pre-triage facilities used before patients are admitted to local hospitals.
In Lazio, funds supported the Covid Hospital at the Policlinico Tor Vergata in Rome, the project to provide new departments at the Sant’Andrea Hospital in the capital, and the purchase of technical equipment, respirators and other healthcare items for the San Paolo Hospital in Civitavecchia.
Last but not least, at the Campus Bio-Medico in Rome the funds helped purchase equipment for the Covid Campus Center that treats patients from other regions in Italy.
The Regions of Liguria, Piedmont, Marche and Puglia have also received donations to set up new beds, purchase medical equipment and machines and personal protection equipment (PPE) for healthcare and other facilities. The same applies to Abruzzo, Campania and Sicily.
There is a way of being close to people in need even while we are apart: and that is the approach we have chosen here at Enel. Apart but together.
