Expat Living magazine
April 3, 2009
A Family's Passion is Put into Action

There are two kinds of people in the world --- those who talk about doing something and those who actually do it. Meet Pasquale Pistorio, a grandfatherly man with a twinkle in his eye and an easy smile. This successful Italian businessman who turned a bankrupt company into the multi- billion-dollar STMicroelectronics, a semi-conductor giant with 50,000 employees worldwide including 8,000 here in Singapore, is passionate about helping poor children get an education and that’s what he and his family are doing. When Pasquale retired in 2005, he finally had the time to start the Geneva-based Pistorio Foundation, which he runs with the help of his three children, Elena and Carmelo, who both live in Singapore and manage the Singapore chapter, and Vittorio, who is based in Milano, Italy.

A strong sense of social responsibility runs in the family. The Pistorios refuse to look away or live in the oblivious bubble of denial that many of us inhabit. They can not just ignore the fact, for instance, that five million children die every year from malnutrition or starvation.

“If you are blessed with wealth, you have a moral obligation to help,” Elena says.

To date, the foundation is funding the education for nearly 900 children in four places, including Chiang Rai, Thailand, where 555 children from 10 different villages are enrolled in several schools, including a new built by Pistorio; Burkina Faso, in Africa, one of the least developed countries in the world; and the poor rural communities of Lithang, Tibet. In Cambodia, where many of the children had previously lived a deplorable existence trash picking on the notorious municipal dump of Stung Meanchey outside of Phnom Penh, Pistorio works with the non-profit group, Pour Un Sourire d’Enfants (PSE), to rescue children from the dump and enroll them in school. Currently the Pistorio Foundation supports the education of 133 children at the PSE school there. With all their projects, Pistoria works with select partners, both local non-profits and on-site NGOs. A fifth project to help children in Morocco is in the works.

“Visiting the dumps in Cambodia changes your life,” Pasquale says. “It’s unacceptable for any human being to live like this.”

To educate poor and needy children, the Foundation builds schools, pays teachers, provides basic healthcare and nutritious meals, and buys uniforms, shoes, books and supplies for the kids. Focusing on the long-term, Pistorio supports not just primary school education, but also secondary schooling and job training, so that the children are qualified for a decent job one day and can break the cycle of poverty.

“School gives them a place in society and a future to look forward to,” Elena says.

But educating poor children takes more than building a school. In some cases it means giving parents rice to compensate for their children being taken out of fields or arranging transport when the school is too far away to walk to. It’s about empowering mothers and family members by teaching them the importance of basic hygiene and family planning. It’s the Pistorio’s dream to help 10,000 kids by 2015.

The family is proud of the fact that there are absolutely no administrative costs, a core group of about 20 friends and family donate their time and expenses for the good of the Foundation. Financial resources for the projects come from the interest on the initial capital the Pistorios endowed to the Foundation, and through annual fundraisers in Singapore and abroad, and private contributions --- several hundred thousand dollars are collected each year to fund the education projects. The Pistorio family and key volunteers travel to the sites multiple times per year to check on the progress of the schools and liaise with local authorities and on-site partners to make sure the donated money is being used appropriately to deliver the best education possible.

“We are a rare example of a 0-cost foundation, and that’s a fundamental difference from other charities,” Pasquale says. As they continue to grow and inevitably require an administrative staff member or two, the Foundation’s by-laws state that no more than 10% of the annual budget would ever be spent on administrative staff and costs, much lower than the average charity.

A strong sense of right and wrong has moved and motivated Pasquale all his life and driven a passion to help chip away at the underlying causes of poverty and war, which he sees as the gross inequality of wealth distribution, the explosion of the world population (more than tripling over the last century), and worsening pollution and global warming. If Pasquale ruled the world, he’d require developed countries to devote 0.7% of their GDP to aid poor countries, cancel the debt of poor countries and enact the Tobin tax, a proposed 0.1% tax on international financial transactions that could be donated to the poor.

“As human beings, we should all be proud of our technological and economic achievements, but we should also be very ashamed of the imbalances and tragedies that exist in this world. While we are not responsible for the millions dying of starvation, we have a moral responsibility to help,” Pasquale says.

As much as the downturn in the economy affects us all to some extent, it’s even worse for those on the brink of survival.

“We have to put things in perspective to realize who the real victims are,” says Elena.

For more information, contact Pistorio at www.pistoriofoundation.org and elena.pistorio@pistoriofoundation.org.

Heidi was so moved by the Pistorio’s mission that she’s donating her fee for this article to the Pistorio Foundation.