University Scholarship in Medicine for two African Nuns

Project location: Madagascar
Project start date: November 2004 - Project end date: November 2011
Project number: 2004-27
Beneficiary: FONDAZIONE RITA LEVI MONTALCINI

[2006-38]

Rita Levi-Montalcini 

photo credit: Gabriele Benini

The Levi-Montalcini Onlus Foundation was founded in July 1992 by Rita and Paola Levi-Montalcini, in memory of their father Adamo Levi, with the motto "The future to young people", to promote the study and the orientation to work of the new generations. In January 2001 the Statute of the Foundation underwent major changes and it was called Foundation Rita Levi-Montalcini Onlus.
The Foundation aims at helping women coming from Countries where people struggle daily to survive, mainly by organizing and implementing intervention programs to help young women from developing countries, with particular reference to the African continent, so as to give them an adequate level of culture and education and more technical, operational and managing skills.

One of the main problems of peoples of the less developed Countries, especially Africa, is the lack of access to education for almost all belonging to the female sex. The Foundation believes that education is the key of the progress of a Country and female literacy is the most effective tool to create a class of women able to assume leadership positions in social, political and scientific fields, to fulfil the opportunities offered by international cooperation programs and to educate young people of later generations. Creativity and organizational efficiency repeatedly demonstrated by young African women may trigger mechanisms of social transformation essential for themselves and for the entire human race.

The Foundation also offers support, training and encouragement to young women in their choices regarding their studies, their activities and their careers; it also provides professional and academic support and promotes initiatives on education, vocational training and the development of female personality.

The Foundation Rita Levi-Montalcini Onlus has previously awarded scholarships to young African women to attend five-year programs for high school and university studies. For example, some scholarships have been awarded for research on diseases of the nervous system.

With this project, the Nando Peretti Foundation has donated to the Foundation Rita Levi-Montalcini a sum to allocate to two young Malagasy women as University Grants, to obtain a medical degree from the University of Antananarivo (Madagascar). In this way, the Foundation intends to give them the opportunity to become two doctors and contribute to the development of their country.

The course of study to obtain the medical degree is seven years. The project will ensure that the selected students have full access to courses needed to complete their training and will also provide all the necessary educational materials and the psychological support.