2020 highlights: caring for the environment and children and people in need in the year of the pandemic

With the world struggling to contain an unprecedented health emergency just months after the MSC Foundation’s launch, it responded with agility and determination, providing support where needed most throughout the pandemic, continuing to support its ongoing conservation, educational and health programmes, and providing prompt emergency relief in the Bahamas and Beirut.

Focus Area: Environmental Conservation, Community Support, Education, Emergency relief

MSC Foundation achieved much in 2020 despite the challenges of the Covid pandemic. While continuing to work tirelessly for our Blue Planet and for children and people in need, much of the Foundation’s work was naturally focused on helping people impacted by the pandemic itself, without neglecting other humanitarian disasters and emergencies worldwide.

Overall, MSC Foundation’s work in 2020 saw it:

• Lead more than 13 emergency relief initiatives as part of the efforts to combat Covid-19, but also to assist rebuilding in the wake of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas and to support the reconstruction in Beirut following the explosion that tore through the city from the port, donating masks, perishable goods, foodstuffs and medical equipment, housing containers and waste removal trailers as well as providing free transportation;
• Launch the pioneering Super Coral Campaign to restore coral reefs and combat climate change;
• Support marine conservation education in primary and secondary schools in Italy through remote schooling with Marevivo;
• Recycle plastic waste into eco-friendly bricks to build 21 classrooms in the Ivory Coast under a programme that won the UNICEF Global Inspire Award;
• Continue our partnership with Mercy Ships in Senegal, impacting the lives of 7,000 people
• Maintain our healthcare support with the Andrea Bocelli Foundation for more than 4,000 direct beneficiaries in poor remote communities in Haiti;
• Save the lives of 3,011 children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition in Malawi
• Successfully complete the renaturing project on the River Elbe led by the Elbe Habitat Foundation with the planting of endangered hemlock water fennel;
• Present families in need across Geneva with end-of-year presents, gifting festive smiles to 366 children and more…..

Describing the Foundation’s agile and determined response to the unfolding events of the year, Executive Director Daniela Picco explained: “The pandemic forced us to change course rapidly just a few months after our launch. In the early days of the health emergency that would shake the world, we donated 10,000 masks to Hubei in China, at the centre of the emergency, and worked non-stop after that trying to play our part to help in more than 10 countries around the world”.

Providing you with more complete information, the MSC Foundation is pleased to share a full-colour month-by-month account of the salient moments in its intense work in 2020, which you can download here.