We would like to thank Antonio Piccoli for his Audit Mission to our Chiang Rai Village Project in April and August and for the Ban Mhai Pattana' Village Impact Assessment conducted.  Ban Mhai Pattana' Village was the first village in which the Foundation began building school infrastructure in Northern Thailand.  Over the first few years we built a primary school, dormitory, kindergarten, teacher accommodations, library, computer room, and water system.  As parents have been able to save part of their income thanks to their children's free access to education and health provided by our Scholarship Program, and to the development of agricultural activities, particularly coffee plantations,  the village has significantly developed.  This is clearly visible in the increase of standard of living of the families, in the improved housing construction materials used (brick houses are seen today which did not exist seven years ago, they were all wood and mud huts), improved roads connecting the schools and village, improved health and sanitation thanks to access to sanitation facilities and clean drinking water, and in the increase in income of families.

Although it was a challenge obtaining all desired data from our 2006 baseline for this study, as we had not gathered it at the onset of our project,  it has been a lesson learned in collecting significant data in advance to perform relevant impact assessments moving forwards. In the assessment conducted this year, beneficiaries, parents, teachers, village head, and other stakeholders were interviewed and questioned on a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators. 

The feedback was compiled and elaborated together with other relevant data collected on the village. The assessment relieved that a large majority of families have significantly increased their income levels in the past six years so that they are now able to continue supporting their children in school on their own.  The village is close to self sustainability which was the intended goal of our Village Project Model, for villages to achieve self-sustainability, after which the Foundation can begin its gradual exit strategy and move on to more needy villages.

Our volunteers interviewed Sreyleak and met with her family.  Sreyleak attends the Catch Up School at PSE. She is now in high school and is a very good student.  She lives with her family in a village in the outskirts of Phnom Penh.   Her mother is a widow who works selling melons on the streets. When the mother is not ill, she can make about 2.5 USD per day.  Sreyleak has two brothers, one who works as a scavenger collecting recyclable plastic, the other as a construction worker.

The second brother is married with two children.  All seven live in the same house of one room lacking sanitation facilities. The rent costs 40 USD a month and water and electricity about 5 USD a month.  Sreyleak sometimes works on weekends to help her mother, although she tries to spend as much time as possible studying.  Sreyleak wakes up every morning at 5 a.m. and has breakfast at school which starts then at 7 a.m.  Sreyleak told us, "my dream is to be a front office manager. If I have a lot of money, I will support the poor children and families to study like me."

Our event of June 23 at the Inaugural Charity Dinner of the Milan Chapter, Associazione Amici della Fondazione Pistorio ONLUS, was a great success! We would like to thank all guests who have attended and generously supported our cause.  We were also honored by the presence of Milly Moratti, President of Emergency, Italian political figure and Artistic Director of Inter.

Our deepest gratitude also goes to our sponsors, Small Luxury Hotels (SLH), Shambala Restaurant, F.C. International, STMicroelectronics, Rocca Wines, Dieffetch, AGC Arti Grafiche, XID Technologies, ALLOVER, GENERALI Assicurazioni, Brembo, and Kerakoll.

We would also like to thank our volunteers and contributors, Mario Orlandi and Ettore Martinelli.  

We are delighted to have raised over 21,000 Euros that will fund the expansion of our Secondary School in the village of Sogpelce', province of Boulkiemde' in Burkina Faso, as well as didactic materials, and the water and solar electric system.  The school currently holds over 500 students.

During the event, Pasquale Pistorio, President and Founder, introduced the Foundation to guests  and Margaret Dragone delivered a presentation of the recent developments of our Burkina Faso Project. 

The video, "One day in the life of Siry", filmed and produced by volunteer Francesca Ferrari was also screened at the event.

Website Translation into Italian

For all our Italian followers and supporters, our website has been translated into Italian! We would like to thank Pierantonio Palerma for the generous pro bono translation work for the Foundation!