Aboard Nave Amerigo Vespucci, moored at Pier 86, on July 6 a conference was held by Fondazione Francesca Rava – NPH Italia, hosted by the commander of the ship, Captain of Vascello Nicasio Falica. A meeting dedicated to the sixteen years of collaboration between the Rava Foundation and the Navy, in responding to humanitarian emergencies in the world, within the World Tour Amerigo Vespucci 2026.
To tell it was Mariavittoria Rava, founder and president of the Foundation, who retraced the story of a commitment born from pain. The Foundation bears the name of her sister Francesca, who died in an accident, and represents in Italy NPH, Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, the organization that welcomes orphan children or in difficulty in Latin America. “My destiny was to serve this organization and to help so many children in the world become responsible citizens in their countries,” he said.
The connection with the Navy began in 2010, with the earthquake that devastated Haiti. In those days the Saint Damien Pediatric Hospital, built and supported by the Foundation, was among the few structures to resist the earthquake and became the center of international relief. The Navy crossed the ocean with Nave Cavour to help, under the guidance, for the humanitarian part, Father Rick Frechette, director of NPH Haiti. “From those days of work together, arm to arm with the Navy, a collaboration and a friendship that still lasts today,” said Rava.
From Haiti, that collaboration has extended to many other emergencies. Rava recalled the five years in the Mediterranean, with over two hundred volunteer doctors on board the ships of the Navy to save the lives of migrants, and then interventions in Lebanon after the explosion in the port of Beirut, in Turkey after the earthquake, and in Gaza, where the doctors of the Foundation alternated to assist the small patients arrived in very serious conditions. “We arrived at the speed of light, thanks to the logistics of the Navy,” he explained.
The thread that holds all this together, Rava said, is the same that is engraved on the master tree of Vespucci. “Not those who begin, but those who persevere. It is exactly the value that the Foundation shared with the Navy,” he observed. “Persevering is not easy, in life it is easy to be enthusiastic at first, but then the time comes to persevere”.
The commitment also continues in Italy, with projects in juvenile prisons, where the Foundation and the Navy offer young prisoners scholarships and training opportunities, and with courses that teach useful skills to find a job. “What we do may seem so much, but it is always small compared to need,” Rava said. “And a good example can be followed by others.”.
The meeting is part of the many events hosted on board Vespucci during his stay in New York, and anticipated the appointment of the next day to the United Nations, where the Foundation would bring its experience. Because the sea, as it was remembered on board, divides countries but also unites them, through humanitarian projects and lives that can save.
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