In 2010, the Cuomo Foundation started supporting the rehabilitation of a school in the Panjshir Region, Afghanistan. This renovation is part of the “Destination Schools Afghanistan” program created and managed by La Chaîne de l’Espoir, which promotes the return of girls to education and schools.

Due to the deterioration and unsafe conditions of the Koha Tulkha school, parents were afraid to send their children there. The positive impact of the renovation was an increase by 37% of pupils for the new academic year in March 2011 (110 in total). The Cuomo Foundation has also funded and provided for the school, hygiene and school equipment kits (pens, books, uniforms, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, etc.)

 

 

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At the beginning of 2011, in collaboration with Casa do Menor and Monaco Red Cross International Actions, the “Presença de Sabores” project was created in the favela of Miguel Couto, Rio de Janeiro.

An existing property has been fully adapted and equipped to run as a hotel and catering training school.

This social project gives former street kids a qualified vocation enabling these young adults to gain employment in the catering industry as kitchen assistants, waiters and barmen.

Partnerships have been formed with local professionals, restaurants and hotels to encourage placements.

 

 

 

 

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The “Alfredo and Elena Cuomo Unit”, created with the support of the Cuomo Foundation, opened in the Children’s Pavilion at the beginning of 2012. It offers many new equipments and facilities including a kitchen, a waiting room, a dental facility and patient rooms. Since its initial involvement, the Foundation has been providing major support to the center’s operations until 2015.

 “School at the hospital”

Due to the care required, from post-operative phase to long-term follow-up, some children in the Pavilion experience significant delays in their schooling. To minimize the impact of this problem, the Cuomo Foundation supported an educational program called “School in the Hospital”.

“Caravane Cuomo de l’Espoir”

Jointly set up with “La Chaîne de l’Espoir” between 2012 and 2014, this initiative aimed to transfer low-weight Cambodian infants, suffering from serious heart diseases, to Vietnam. In Vietnam, the infants are taken in charge by the Ho Chi Minh City’s Heart Institute, which practices open-heart interventions on these patients.

Under this program which ran for three years, twenty infants were able to receive treatments. In addition to the rescued children, this project also provided Cambodian medical personal from the Children’s Pavilion, travelling with infants, with a very useful overseas professional training.

The Caravan Cuomo has stopped in 2015 since the Pavilion has now the capacity to undertake open-heart surgeries on fragile infants.

Project sustainability

To ensure the sustainability of the Children’s Pavilion, medical practitioners are recruited locally and trained as part of a project, launched in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Cambodia. This is bound to help Cambodian personnel to gradually take over the management of the center in the coming years.

 

 

 

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Throughout the world less than one third of the children enrolled in schools are girls. Because of this observation, the journalist Tina Kieffer decided to found a charity called “Toutes à l’école” in 2005. The mission is to provide high-level education to under-privileged girls and to allow them to get jobs in the future where they can enjoy freedom and dignity.

The Cuomo Foundation supported the funding of a vocational training centre for the pupils of the Happy Chandara School. It was opened in December 2013.

 

 

 

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In 2011, following the catastrophic earthquake, the Cuomo Foundation funded through La Chaîne de l’Espoir, the renovation of 10 schools in the Mornes region, Haiti (Dejeume, Roche Pierre, Balisiers, Ranou, Saut-Balisiers, Chrétien, Charles, Tofié, Bois Panyol and Deck). Each school was fully renovated and equipped with tables, benches and blackboards. Six additional classrooms were built.
 

 

 

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The Luc Sangaré Centre was built in 2006 on the outskirts of Bamako, the capital of Mali. The centre functions as an after school/work study institute for teenagers and young adults, providing study areas, evening classes, lectures and courses.

In 2010 the Cuomo Foundation supported the funding of an extension to the Centre, a two-storey Building providing two large additional classrooms, a library and video conference centre. Over six hundred students are able to make use of these facilities, all free of charge.

The Cuomo Foundation inaugurated an additional extension of the Luc Sangaré Centre on January 11th, 2014. Since its creation, over 5,000 students have attended the Centre. Those students are mostly students coming from different schools of Bamako, employees or looking for an employment. The daily evening courses, held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., take on topics such as project management, human resources management, computer science, corporate communication and English.

The Foundation also provided funding for educational materials, computers and an electrical generator.

 

 

 

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The Hobart Method was formulated by Gillian Hobart, well-known dancer and distinguished teacher, guest teacher for modern dance at the National Academy of Dance (Rome), the Syndicated Centre for Dance (Rome) and the Regional Centre of Dance (Perfection Course) in Reggio Emilia; she is also a Counselor in the Psychotherapeutic method of Carl Rogers at the Italian Centre for Clinical Psychology in Rome.

The Hobart Method was developed to focus particularly on the diversely-abled, giving support to a wide range of therapy and its use in the understanding of the body. Its innate ability for personal expression in defense of the non-verbal and physically disadvantaged person, brings about a better relationship with others and ‘know oneself through dance’.

The first positive results of the Hobart Method were evolved and developed at the Association for Assistance and Social Integration (AAIS) in Bracciano, the Cooperative for Solidarity in Ladispoli, and at the Movimento Centrale Dance & Theatre in Rimini. It was also applied in state schools in Emilia-Romagna, focusing on mixed classes presenting aggressiveness, Down’s Syndrome and familial violence.

Throughout the study course, emphasis is also placed on musical appreciation, fundamental to the successful outcome of the body-mind unity.
The Foundation has supported the Hobart Method at Movimento Centrale Centre since 2001.

 

 

 

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Operation Smile is an organisation which started in 1989 that performs face reconstruction surgeries in Niger. It aims to help children to be cured of pathologies (noma, burns, congenital malformations, tumors) worsened by malnutrition.

The aim of these operations is not only to bring a solution to the physical and moral throes of these pathologies but also to allow a social rehabilitation.

Two expeditions are organised each year in the National Hospital of Niamey under the direction of Prof. Jean-Marie Servant. With his team of specialists, of which Dr. Daniel Cataldo is a member, more than 1,000 surgeries were performed since the creation of this organisation.

In 2010, the Cuomo Foundation sponsored the “Special Luigi Frateschi support” programme which permitted “a new smile” to 40 young patients.

 

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Thuyloi University is recognised as a leading technical university in the field of water resources and hydropower in south East Asia. It offers a multi-disciplined curriculum in mechanics, transportation, construction, water supply and sewerage, IT, natural resources, environment disaster management, water resources, hydropower, economics and climate change from junior college to postgraduate level.

International Education Centre

The International Education Centre was implemented in a context where it is compulsory to study English as a subject for all the students of the university and all advanced programmes are taught in English.

Globally, English is increasingly the universal official language for teaching. The university recognises the need for an up-to-date international language centre to create a modern facilitated studying and research environment for students and staff so they are equipped with appropriate skills for careers in the future.

 

 

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In 2016, the Foundation supported a Tiébélé social enterprise initiative by funding the opening of a ‘Cultural Café’ close to the Tiébélé Royal Courts-an important heritage site situated in the south of Burkino Faso.

The project has proven a financial and social success.

Managed and run by a local ,Mr Herman Nassara, the café offers a unique social meeting centre for not only the local inhabitants but also the many varied cultural tourists who tour the regions historical sites. 

Offering both refreshments and information the centre will act as a vital cultural hub involving the diverse groups that make up the social life of this historic village including its local jazz musicians, its guides and the visiting tourists, its youth and the learned elders.

 

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Maurice Sagna left school early and with only a basic technical vocational certificate. He lived in Dakar, working primarily in the informal sector but with the commencement of the construction of the Centre Cardio-Pédiatrique Cuomo in Dakar Maurice Sagna found a more permanent position, as he became an official driver for the various teams working on the site.

During this period, he was able to become acquainted with the visiting members of the Cuomo Foundation team and with their encouragement submitted a proposal for his own career initiative and dream of creating his own car rental company with a chauffeur service in Dakar. 

The Foundation was impressed by his serious commitment and entrepreneurship and agreed to support and fund his initiative through a 2-tier financing scheme.

In the first stage, one vehicle was purchased followed by a second vehicle purchase and the employment of an additional driver. With the rental of office premises, a genuine business was launched, and Maurice Sagna is now the proud owner of a car rental agency called ‘Authentik Business’.

 

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After covering 2,500 kilometers from Cordoba, Argentina, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the dance couple Ana AMARILLO and Guillermo ANASTASI returned home at the end of March 2022.

The number of participants in the shows and dance classes was estimated at 540 people, mainly from Argentina, but also from Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, and even one from Bulgaria.

According to reports from Ana AMARILLO, some tango professionals prefer to keep the practice of this dance "behind closed doors," in private schools and clubs. However, initiatives like this project bring tango back to the streets, to its origins, as a popular dance, accessible to everyone.

 

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The "Artimuse" Association, affiliated with the "Sciences Po" school, received support from the Foundation in 2022 for its participation in a sea regatta that brought together European Grandes Écoles.

 

 

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Continuing its involvement in artistic patronage, the Cuomo Foundation has supported in 2022 "Babel," a so-called "participatory" opera, where the protagonists are young schoolchildren from Nice, specially recruited for the occasion.

In this creation by Magali Thomas, with music composed by Sergio Monterisi, the children of Babel will attempt to reconcile the Earth with human beings and the surrounding elements in a world that risks self-destruction. Staged as an initiatory journey to the center of the world, the show maintains suspense throughout— "But isn't it already too late?"— and, through this very questioning, aims to raise awareness among young and old alike about the environmental issues on which the future of our planet depends.

Alongside four adult soloists, 140 children from CM1 and CM2 grades, including many students from "inclusion classes", are involved in this thrilling adventure. Initially having no prior lyrical knowledge, the schoolchildren manage to produce an astonishing singing performance. In fact, from the beginning of 2022, they had received special training conducted jointly with the opera team and the teachers from each participating school. The result was there. It is not only a spectacle that conveys civic values but also an initiative that encourages ordinary children to produce the extraordinary.

The project, which receives financial support from the Cuomo Foundation, is under the patronage of activist photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, whose images will be projected during the show.