Mission
Seniores Italia Lazio
Seniores Italia Lazio promotes intergenerational connections between skilled senior volunteers and the organizations involved in youth development, cultural/social integration and sustainable community development.
Sponsoring P&G Alumni
Sponsoring Alum: Paolo Cerullo
27 years in Product Supply in Italy, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland and Ukraine
Additional Alumni involvement from: Antonio Malvestio – 36 Years in Product Supply; Riccardo Vitale – 35 years in Sales, IT, Global Business Service; Valentino D’Antonio – 26 years in Product Supply and HR; Cinzia Gaeta – 34 years in Legal.
Paolo writes in his letter of sponsorship, “The project we are proposing in 2025 represents Step 3 of the projects successfully concluded in 2022 and 2024, both funded by the P&G Alumni Foundation. Each of these projects are part of a larger project started in 2015 to improve the income of poor families in the village of Ambalanjanakomby (Madagascar) through the creation of income generating and female empowerment activities in agriculture and livestock breeding. I personally visited the Ambalanjanakomby village in 2014 and I have actively participated in the previous two steps of the project. This project goes well beyond farming. It brings dignity, cooperation, and real opportunity to women who once had none. It is an honor to be part of their journey.
Phase 3 Female Empowerment
The beneficiaries for this project are the ~2000 people who live in the village of Ambalanjanakomby, a remote village in northern Madagascar. Almost all of them – together with an additional 10,000 people in the entire rural municipality – live in poverty, practicing very low-income agriculture and irrational farming. The “Cooperative 4 Female Empowerment” project has established a ‘social cooperative’ that creates income producing businesses and empowers women. Following two successful phases (including a chicken farming project and crop diversification program), Phase 3 expands the agricultural cooperative by increasing the number of members and cultivated land, adding new crops, and improving basic infrastructure (e.g., toilets, water well, photovoltaic system). The program emphasizes training in sustainable agriculture, teamwork, and cooperative values, with support from the local Ministry of Agriculture.
2025 Grant
The $25,000 PGAF grant will fund the program’s expansion to 50/55 cooperative members, cultivation of 18-20 hectares of diversified crops, technical training and tutoring by agriculture experts and sociologist, construction of a toilet, water well, and solar power system, and purchase of agricultural inputs and a mobile irrigation tank. The project will train 45 individuals and employ 55 (full-time and part-time) women and impact 500 community members. The average income for cooperative members is projected to increase from $100 to $160+ per year.
Success Story
Traditional curriculum content does not always manage to effectively cover all new issues and it is often difficult to get students actively involved. Seniores Italia Lazio offers knowledge that completes school content, creating networks of people, experiences and energies to put them at the service of our young people and the society of tomorrow. Seniores Italia Lazio deeply believes in young people and their potential, which is why it supports them during their school years, guiding them in the realization of their professional future and personal growth based on their aspirations.