Annual Report 2014

Update on DU

• The axis of DU strategy: South-Saharan Africa and ST countries
• The ST Foundation fundraising strategy
• The ST Foundation communication activity
• Partnership Agreement with AVSI
• Partnership with OXFAM Italy
• The launch of a new Local Community in Germany
• Recognition ceremony for the volunteers of Agrate ST site
• ST Foundation’s expansion activity
• DU pictures

• DU strategy’s areas of expansion: South-Saharan Africa and ST countries

The expansion’ strategy of the ST Foundation, approved by the board members in 2012, and based on the two axis of targeting countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and at the same time, of strongly refreshing ST Foundation’s activities in ST countries, was fully maintained during 2014.

In fact, the DU program was boosted, on one side, in non-ST countries like Burundi, Congo, Senegal, and Sierra Leone (surly among the poorest countries of the world). Moreover, South Sudan was added to our areas of intervention. In addition, the Foundation reinforced its presence in ST countries, strengthening its presence in the Philippines, China, Brazil and adding Germany to the operation areas.

• The ST Foundation fundraising strategy

The ST Foundation launched its fundraising activity in June. In fact, Pietro Fox, in agreement with all the board members, signed a contract of collaboration with Ethika in June 2014. The mission of this organization is to support “not for profit” entities to develop a fundraising strategy.

• The ST Foundation communication activity

The ST Foundation, with the support of the ST Corporate External Communication team, has issued the first Annual Report devoted to inform the public of its activity. The document, also available on the website, was distributed both internally and externally to ST to better illustrate our activities in the intervention areas.

The first targets of the ST Foundation document are those possible donors to whom we can address new grant proposals, and the ST sites where we would like to raise the awareness of our program and of the possibility to support our mission on a voluntary basis, launching new local communities.

• Partnership Agreement with AVSI

In February, we signed a partnership agreement with AVSI, a registered Italian non-profit organization that has the mission of promoting the dignity of each person through development cooperation activities with a special attention to education, according to the Catholic social teaching. This partnership will support the expansion of our DU Program in new different geographical areas of intervention, identified with the full agreement of both organizations. The first country where this fruitful collaboration became active was South Sudan.

For this purpose, a new member has joined the ST Foundation team for this project. Martina Zavagli, selected in partnership by AVSI and STF, was appointed as local coordinator and she is organizing all the activities locally. Under her supervision, five labs have become operational in the city of Torit and Juba.

• Partnership with OXFAM

The ST Foundation has finalized the Memorandum of Understanding with OXFAM, international confederation of 17 organizations working together with partners and local communities in more than 90 countries. With this new partner, we have planned to set up a lab located in Arezzo, at la Casa delle Culture, Italian association that welcomes immigrants coming from different disadvantaged backgrounds.

• The launch of a new Local Community in Germany

ST Foundation has welcomed a new local community in Germany. The first members of the team were Sabine Birnstein and Karl-Heinz Skowroneck with the active support of Günter Haller, ST Germany site manager. With their help, we completed the translation of the ICB course in German and we started selecting the first partners that might be interested in our mutual collaboration.

• Recognition ceremony for the volunteers of Agrate ST site

In July, a recognition ceremony was organized in the Agrate ST site to thank all those volunteers who supported our activities translating and updating the training material, coordinating the DU program in the Milan area and abroad, and managing all the needed equipment. Pietro Fox, Mauro Decca and Giovanna Bottani were present as representatives of the Foundation, Pietro Palella and Luisa Fracassini attended representing STMicroelectronics.

Eighteen volunteers, together with Mauro Decca received a dedicated plaque as a sign of appreciation from the Foundation and a letter from Pietro Fox thanking them personally for their precious support. The participants were then invited to join us for dinner.

• Our support to the fight against Ebola

All the activities have been put on hold starting from August 2014 because of the Ebola epidemic that is devastating Sierra Leone. The country has suffered over 3.000 deaths from Ebola along the year. Therefore, its government has become the first to take the draconian step of telling the entire population to stay at home to avoid the spreading of this disease.

In order to give a personal contribution to the country the ST Foundation has lend 60 computers to AFCOM (the company that provides the internet connection to all our DU Labs in Sierra Leone) which was asked by the Sierra Leone Ministry of  Health to set up a call center for the fight against Ebola. AFCOM was, in fact, not able to find enough PCs to proceed with the set-up of this important call center and therefore STFoundation decided to give the needed support and help.

In order to thank us for the help we provided AFCOM has committed to give internet connection free of charge for all our DU Labs once the activities will start again.

• ST Foundation’s expansion activity

In January Ruben Sonnino together with Sergio Almerares, a Micron’s volunteer, organized an eight days mission to Santa Cruz (Bolivia) to initiate the activity of two new learning centers we set up in cooperation with VIS and PDB (Projecto Don Bosco).  A three days “Train the Trainer” course to 10 future trainers was organized too using the new training material in Spanish. During the visit, the representatives of the Foundation were asked to cut the ribbon and to inaugurate these labs. The ceremony was very emotional and we could sense the enthusiasm and happiness of the participants. Padre Ottavio, the responsible of the center, asked Ruben Sonnino to convey the gratitude of the organization to the management of the ST Foundation for this initiative.

The mission proceeded to Brasil where Ruben Sonnino organized an ICBF course for two new ST volunteers and visited potential partners.

In March Enrico Riva, planned a two weeks mission to Sierra Leone to close the ongoing partnership with the NGO Shine on Sierra Leone, historic partner of the Foundation. The scope was to assure a smooth continuation of the program during the change, reviewing the status of all the labs present in the country and formalizing the cooperation with Mr. Mohamed Dumbuya, who have already cooperated to support our program with our former partner. He was appointed as local coordinator. Thanks to the mission, the ST Foundation signed an agreement with AFCOM, our local internet provider, to reduce the fees’ costs for the labs already set-up and to put the base for further collaborations.

In March, Pietro Fox organized a 6 days mission to South Sudan, one of the poorest countries of the world. The ST Foundation is present in the country with the support of AVSI Foundation. The key purposes of the trip were to identify five potential locations to set up new labs (four are in Juba, South Sudan capital, 1 in Torit, the capital of Eastern Equatorial State)

In June Patrice Chastagner and Giovanna Bottani planned a 5 days mission to Morocco. The key purposes of the trip were to visit the new representatives of the Ministry of Interior to assure a smooth continuation of the DU program with our partner after the changes in the organization. Moreover, the visit was extended to eight DU centers in different areas of the country, representing the key typologies of our partners, to better understand their needs, requests, and possible opportunities to start pilot tests on how to drive a lab toward financial independence.

In September, Mauro Decca visited for a two weeks mission the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi with key purpose of verifying the ongoing activities in all the operational centers, identifying and solving local problems with a particular focus on the equipment that needs to be replaced or repaired.

• DU pictures
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