Ambassador Fabio Messineo participated in the celebrations for the 40 years of activity of the Pietro Gamba Foundation in Anzaldo, a small Andean municipality at 3,000 meters above sea level.
Pietro Gamba, now known as ‘the doctor of campesinos’, arrived in the plateau in 1975 for the civil service and, affected by the conditions of extreme precariousness of the population, returned there as a doctor. Over the years, thanks to the Italian Cooperation, he developed a hospital centre that became a point of reference for rural communities in the area. In four decades, the hospital has carried out more than 5,000 surgeries and numerous emergency life-saving interventions, in an isolated and difficult to reach territory.
In his speech, Ambassador Messineo recalled that the work of the Foundation represents a concrete example of Italian solidarity in Bolivia and fits into the long Italian presence in the Andes: since 1962 missionaries and volunteers from our country have contributed to the social and economic development of the region, creating a deep bond of friendship, in particular with the province of Bergamo, where most of the Bolivian community in Italy resides today.
