The Foundation

Celebrating difference to make a difference

The Fondazione Gennaro Santilli was established with the aim of celebrating cultural, social and cognitive diversity, acting to address situations of vulnerability to make a positive impact on the people and the local area. Set up in 2019, we are a young Foundation, but our values have a long legacy.

The Foundation owes its origins to the desire of Ludovica Santilli, an entrepreneur with a concern for social issues, to carry forward the mindset and vision of her father Gennaro, long regarded as a source of inspiration and altruism. Today, the Fondazione Gennaro Santilli operates throughout Italy.

We work tirelessly to consolidate and expand our goals, in the belief that pragmatically and constructively celebrating diversity in all its forms is the most powerful way to bring about real change in the lives and futures of all.

WE SHAPE CHANGE

Small steps, one day at a time

We believe in change in the form of small steps, one day at a time. And so, we want to be a changemaker in the local area, developing and implementing projects aimed at creating a new cultural paradigm that places diversity at its centre.

We do so in the belief that diversity, in all its forms, is first and foremost culture, because culture cannot exist without diversity. A diversity that enhances our daily lives and helps us understand the changes that take place within us and in the wider world.

The value of diversity

This is why we have chosen diversity, in all its forms, as our main area of action and key issue, with the aim of contributing to rethinking educational programmes from the perspective of inclusivity and encouraging a profound reconsideration of the concept of training and educational pathways.

It is this spirit that drives us to promote the pursuit of new educational pathways, engaging with knowledge capable of celebrating diversity and acting to address situations of vulnerability, by adopting the approaches best suited to transforming them into assets. In so doing, we collaborate with a diverse range of professionals, capable of offering new interpretations and unexplored solutions: scientists, educators, medical doctors, artists, students, writers, photographers and intellectuals.

New models of social action

In keeping with our vision, we develop partnerships at a national and international level, to identify and adopt new models of social, cultural, social-health and legal action. New methods of sharing ideas and influencing various spheres, with the aim of creating an inclusive and dynamic ecosystem that lends itself to the harmonious growth of people, while ensuring full recognition and utmost respect for human rights, with a particular focus on the younger generations. Because, as Ludovica Santilli taught us, each act, combined with an infinite number of other small acts, can change the lives of everyone, becoming something great.

OUR TEAM

Lawyer Adriano Izzo

Chair
Adriano Izzo was appointed by Ludovica Santilli to set up the Foundation. The trust placed in him inspires and fuels the desire to realise the vision of its Founder, working with a highly motivated team to develop projects with a high social impact.

Lawyer Francesca Pantanella

Director
An expert in offences against the person, and in particular violent offences against women and children, against family support, she has also worked for years to protect the rights of animals, particularly in the area of experimentation.

Vienna Eleuteri Held
Scientific Director

A medical anthropologist and sustainability scientist, she has led and coordinated numerous national and international projects in the area of sustainable development, human health, and celebrating diversity.

Governance
LUDOVICA SANTILLI

A story that looks to the future

Born in 1929, Ludovica was the embodiment of an intelligent, modern and sensitive entrepreneur. A true changemaker. A strong and determined woman, she divided her time between managing the family estate and establishing projects focused on outreach and inclusion. Characterised by kindness, she made a positive difference in the lives of many through concrete actions, right up to the day she died in January 2018.

The impact of her determination to build a more inclusive future, one step at a time, lives on powerfully. Her energy resonates and is amplified through every one of our actions. The Foundation was born of her desire not to see a life’s work lost, but instead to breathe new energy into it, while at the same time honouring the memory of her father, Gennaro Santilli, whose values of altruism and social outreach have long been a source of inspiration.

GENNARO SANTILLI

The seed
of change

Gennaro Santilli (1903 – 1980) was an Italian entrepreneur and philanthropist. With his feet on the ground and his eye on the future, he succeeded in intelligently grasping the opportunities presented by the post-war economic recovery, becoming a prolific property developer.

A strong interest in social issues and a concern for those in more vulnerable situations characterised his entire life. He shared this vision with his daughters Pierina and Ludovica, who he involved in managing his company and in whom he enthusiastically instilled independence, self-determination and empathy.

Our Foundation bears his name as a tribute to a life defined by strong yet kind values. His emotional and practical legacy has been handed down to us, with the aim of creating continuity with his life mission, his ideals and his vision of the future. An existence punctuated by many small, special gestures that live on today in the form of tangible and intangible assets that, in turn, will continue to fuel much more.