The Foster Parents’ Plan: The First Years of Child Sponsorship in Italy

Silvia Cassamagnaghi, Università degli Studi di Mlano

The Foster Parents’ Plan was born in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War: the idea was to support local children establishing a lasting personal relationship between orphaned or refugee minors and foreign sponsors. Since the beginning of the program, every Foster Parent was sent the name, a brief history and a photograph of a child in need. On the other hand, the child was told how and by whom he/she was being provided for and encouraged to write letters to the Foster Parent. With the outbreak of World War II, Plan’s work expanded considerably and even before the end of the conflict it was clear that there would be a tremendous need for aid in devastated Europe: there were thousands of orphaned children in extreme poverty, often maimed or mutilated. So, in the spring of 1944, Plan started to establish children’s hostels in the liberated countries: the first one was opened in Malta and was soon followed by similar institutes in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Italy. The work of the Plan in Italy became regular in 1947, when a negotiate was made with the Italian authorities, the first director, Elma Baccanelli, was engaged and an office was opened in Rome. The first Foster children were found among those hospitalized in institutions in various parts of Italy: to be able to treat the most urgent cases and have direct contact with the Italian reality, support was often sought from charities working in the country, such as the “Onmi” (Opera Nazionale Maternità e Infanzia), the “Servizio Madrinato” of the Italian Red Cross and the “Pro Infanzia mutilata”, directed by Don Gnocchi. From this point on (but more and more independently), the Plan devoted itself to support children in need, allowing them to complete their studies, always following the Plan well-tested program.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 261. Save the Children?: Childhood, Charity, and Humanitarianism