Camerino Hospital / ASUR 3 Marche Region

• Provision of personal protective equipment for intensive therapy
• 4 respirators for intensive therapy
• Latest generation CT Scan Computerised Axial Tomograph Multilayer 128 slices

Macerata Hospital / ASUR 3 Regione Marche

• Construction of Covid 19 ward in 10 days (30 beds). Inaugurated on 7 April

“San Giuseppe” Hospital, Empoli / AUsl Toscana Centro (Tuscany Centre)

• no. 15 flowmeters

“Lotti” di Pontedera Hospital

• Portable ultrasound system for Covid 19 ward and diffusion system for waiting room

“San Giovanni di Dio” (Torregalli) Hospital, Florence

• Portable respirator for Covid 19 ward

“Meyer” Paediatric Hospital, Florence

• 60 helmets for the intensive care unit.

20 Oxygen concentrators

ASUR MACERATA (Nursing Home of Tolentino, Nursing Home of Sarnano, Comunità di Matelica Hospital, Nursing Home Esanatoglia), Retirement Home of Cingoli, Retirement Home of Jesi, Retirement Home of San Severino Marche

Weekly delivery of safety devices (over 55,000 pcs)

• Camerino Hospital
• San Giovanni di Dio (Torregalli), Florence Hospital
• Apuane Hospital of Massa
• Versilia Hospital of Viareggio
• Lotti di Pontedera Hospital
• Meyer Hospital Paediatric Surgery of Florence
• Community houses and guest houses for doctors Ronald Mcdonald Homes of Florence and Rome
• Care Homes, Marche, Lazio and Emilia Romagna
• Volunteer Associations Marche, located in the area of Earthquake 2016

THE PROJECT

When the Coronavirus emergency started to spread in Italy, the Andrea Bocelli Foundation was building the new Music Academy in Camerino, a village in Marche Region that had been affected by the earthquake in 2016. On 17 March, for the safety of the team of workers, technicians, professionals and of their families, ABF decided to temporarily suspend the reconstruction work of the Music Academy in Camerino. After Sarnano and Muccia, where ABF rebuilt the secondary school, the primary school and the kindergarten school, the intervention in Camerino represented the new reconstruction intervention after the earthquake in 2016 and an investment in terms of education. ABF decided to remain at the service of communities suffering from a “double red zone” and launched a fundraiser dedicated to phase 1 of the emergency. 

In this emergency context due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus, ABF chose to put itself at the service and offer concrete support to those working on the front line and also to realities and communities in a state of need. Actions focused on care and education aimed at leading each individual to express his/her own potential at his/her best. This is why ABF chose to start a project and a dedicated fundraiser: in order to restore a condition of dignity based on access to basic elements such as health and education.

After the success of the first campaign aimed at the acquisition of respirators for the intensive therapy of the Camerino hospital converted into Covid Hospital, the Foundation was able to support hospitals, nursing homes for the elderly (RSAs), voluntary associations in Italy through a crowdfunding campaign and the generosity of many donors and companies.

THE CONTEXT

Around mid-December 2019, the health authorities of the city of Wuhan in China (with about 11 million inhabitants), detected the first cases of patients with symptoms of “pneumonia due to unknown cause”; this first group of patients was somehow connected to the local wet market, composed of about a thousand stalls where chickens, pheasants, bats, marmots, snakes, spotted deer and rabbits’ organs, in addition to other wild animals, were sold. As of today, the origin is still uncertain but the most accredited hypothesis states that it is a new coronavirus coming from an animal (a zoonosis). Chinese authorities were the first to report the spread of the disease to the World Health Organisation on 31 December 2019. The strain responsible for the pandemic was identified at the beginning of January 2020 and officially named Coronavirus 2 of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, abbreviated as SARS-CoV-2 and initially named new Coronavirus 2019 (nCoV-2019) and rarely hCoV-2019. On 11 February 2020, the WHO announced that the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus was named COVID-19. Preliminary research on COVID-19 revealed a lethality rate between 9% and 11% and, in January 2020, the WHO suggested that this value could be around 3%. A study carried out on 55 fatal cases revealed that the first estimates concerning lethality could be too high since asymptomatic infections were not taken into consideration, thus estimating a lethality rate (mortality among the infected) between 0.8 %, with asymptomatic carriers included, and 18%, including only the symptomatic cases from the Hubei province. On 22 March, a modelling approach based on French data revealed an effective lethality rate of 0.8%. As of 9 November 2020, 50,517,420 infections were confirmed, with 1,257,922 deaths and 33,083,920 healings. Infections were reported in most part of the Western world and Asia, mainly in those coming from mainland China, with transmission found in Germany, France, Italy, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, Israel, Turkey, Albania, Belgium, Russia, Switzerland, Sweden, Iran, Canada, Peru, Bangladesh, Argentina, Greece, Egypt, Portugal, Denmark, Republic of the Congo and South Africa. Deaths were reported in mainland China, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. As of 11 February 2020, only Mainland China was listed as an area with ongoing community transmission.

PHASE 2

As a result of the generosity demonstrated worldwide, ABF continued to raise funds to support a project intended for phase 2 of the health emergency, to the future, to young students and specifically digital education. The project was developed in partnership with the National Association of Italian Paediatric Hospitals (AOPI) and the Ministry of Education based on a desire to include hospital schools and ensure that access to education is more equitable and sustainable for all. More so, the project has been extended to the schools of the ABF network, in Lajatico (PI), Muccia and Sarnano (MC). Thanks to the funds raised, ABF has opened the project in the Gaslini hospital in Genoa, Salesi hospital in Ancona, Burlo Hospital in Trieste, Santobono-Pausillipon Hospital in Naples and the Meyer Hospital in Florence. 

Access to education has always been the focus of ABF’s work, an element of expression of its mission “empowering people and communities”, in Italy and abroad. For this reason, ABF decided to offer material support to students, families and to their teachers, with a pilot initiative aimed at strengthening distance education, by taking the side of communities that live in very difficult situations once again. 

Specifically, the new ABF initiatives for distance education are aimed at creating:

1. Creation of a library of devices, able to allow students to connect with teachers and educators;
2. Development of a platform for the ABF Lab, which would allow access to a series of online content for education, including interactive ones;
3. Training of the digital atelierisitas figure, a 4.0 librarian able to support teachers, parents and students in the correct use of tools and in the use of them for the purpose of maintaining or developing relationships.