THE FOUNDATION

HISTORY

The Robert Hollman Foundation expresses the last will of Robert Hollman (Maastricht 1890 - Cannero Riviera 1972), a Dutch industrialist who spent the last years of his life on Lake Maggiore (Italy). Robert Hollman fell in love with the local scenery and experienced a great sense of sadness for those who were not able to see such beauty due to their visual impairment. He therefore decided to leave his legacy to the Dutch foundation that carries his name.

Robert Hollman named his friend, attorney Jan de Pont, as executor of his last will and first President of the Foundation, with the important task of building a state-of-the-art Pilot Centre for the medical and social recovery of blind children with other disabilities. This Centre was built in Cannero Riviera and inaugurated on 21 July 1979.
Management of the Cannero Centre was entrusted to Dr Francesco Fonio, the local medical practitioner and friend of Robert Hollman.

In 1986 a fire on the premises caused activities to be transferred - in the first instance for the emergency reception of the children treated in Cannero - to the L. Configliachi Institute for the blind in Padua, with which there had been a close collaboration. This choice reflected also the Foundation’s wish to have a seat in a University city.

The Cannero Centre was rebuilt and since 1990 mothers and their visually impaired child have been coming to the Centre for early intervention treatments. The program belonging to this approach is organized in residential stays of 2 to 3 weeks.

Meanwhile the activities of the Centre in Padua, aimed at diagnosis and rehabilitation of visually impaired children, continued successfully. In 1997 the need was felt to extend the Centre due to the increasing number of children and to set up new strategies for diagnosis and rehabilitation.

At the beginning of 2003, the first stone was laid for the new seat of the Robert Hollman Foundation in Padua (in the Parco del Basso Isonzo) and the new building was inaugurated on 9 October 2004.