SOLETERRE: Strategie di Pace Onlus
Committed since the beginning, in 2002, in projects and interventions in defence of the right to health understood, as indicated by the World Health Organization since 1948, as «a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not simply the absence of disease or infirmity».
The prevention, the denunciation and the contrast of inequalities and violence, whatever the cause that generates it, are an integral part of Soleterre’s activity: because health is social justice.
Activities
Promoting the right to health means ensuring the best care for everyone and dealing with people’s living conditions to eliminate inequalities and discrimination.
Soleterre intervenes to bring diagnoses and medicines, improve living and working conditions, encourage social and political participation.
The International Program for Pediatric Oncology (PIOP) of Soleterre was launched in 2010 to defend the right to health and life of children and adolescents with cancer.
It is a complex and multidisciplinary intervention (carried out in Ukraine, Italy, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Uganda) which has the primary objective of raising survival rates in developing countries – acting on the factors that determine access to care and their quality – and guarantee quality care in Italy.
The complexity and harshness of the disease, with the emotional, economic and social implications that it entails, have forced us to intervene simultaneously in different areas: the medical-scientific, the psychological, the social and the community.
In our country Soleterre, together with the Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia, is providing psychological support and from this year is collaborating with the Professional Association of Oncology Aesthetic (APEO) in order to teach children’s parents how to perform beauty and wellness treatments on patients in cancer therapy and thus improve their psycho-physical quality of life.
Furthermore, Soleterre has decided to launch a new challenge: the creation of a bank of cellular drugs cellulari capable of fighting cancer cells or infections present in sick children.
Accomplished Results
In fifteen years, Soleterre has achieved the following results:
- 260.000 beneficiaries reached, mostly children, young people and women, in 23 countries: Uganda, Ukraine, Morocco, Philippines, India, Ivory Coast, Italy, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize , Mexico, Dominican Republic, Senegal, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, DRC, Syria
- 16 Hospitals supported with the supply of medicines, equipment and training of health personnel
- 21.500 cancer patients assisted with treatment, psychological support and hospitality thanks to the International Program for Pediatric Oncology (PIOP)
- 30.000 people reached with projects to combat malnutrition and maternal and child health
- 58.000 individuals, especially children and young people, who are interested in educational activities and in support of education
- 18.000 men and women involved in career guidance, training and work support and micro-enterprise creation
- 5.600 human rights activists and defenders supported with protection and empowerment activities
How do we collaborate with Soleterre?
Within the program “Grande Contro il Cancro” of SoleTerre, the Rosa Prístina Foundation has started a collaboration aimed in particular at welcoming and providing psychological support to small cancer patients and their families.
The first target countries of the collaboration are Ukraine and Uganda.