How did Fondazzjoni Pippo start?

The idea behind Fondazzjoni Pippo was inspired by the short life of Pippo Muscat, a six-month-old baby who died of heart complications in 1991. Beppe Muscat is the founder and CEO of Fondazzjoni Pippo, as well as the managing director of NM Group, a family business started by his parents Noel and Silvana Muscat. Today, Beppe and his sister Giulia run the family business together with their parents - a fact which highlights Pippo's absence. Through Fondazzjoni Pippo, Pippo's name is able to live on, hopefully with many projects that will enable the foundation to do good things for society.

Tell me about your journey to become an NGO.

The idea behind Fondazzjoni Pippo is to bring businesses and charities together in a sustainable way. Thanks to Beppe's business background, he was able to identify the CSR gap that currently exists locally. CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility - is a concept that many businesses lack formal structure. While CSR is not just about organising charity events, the main focus of Fondazzjoni Pippo is to identify the many and various needs of NGOs and charities, and match them with a sustainable supply by businesses - which can offer services and products in kind, monetary donations, as well as strong platforms from which charities and NGOs can benefit.

What is the main mission of Fondazzjoni Pippo?

Our plan is to empower businesses to carry out two forms of CSR initiatives: one for small-scale events and another for full-blown national campaigns. The foundation's values are based on five pillars: education, social inclusion, healthy living and wellbeing, the environment and sustainable development, arts, culture and national heritage. Through these initiatives, we hope to bring a positive difference to people from all walks of life, across a wide range of issues.

Where are you based in Malta?

Our office is in Ibrag, Swieqi.

What does it mean to you?

We are very grateful to have the opportunity to make this change, and we have been lucky enough to have a number of businesses and NGOs show their support for our efforts. We are aware of a number of social and environmental issues and injustices that occur on a day-to-day basis - usually as a cause of unawareness and ignorance. Whether it's a case of promoting body positivity and a healthy lifestyle to empowering refugees to further their education and encouraging young people to recycle properly - we want to do it all.

Who have you helped so far?

We recently ran a series of beach clean-ups between environment NGO ZIbel and football training camp Footy4U. These clean-ups saw 70 young boys learn first-hand about the damage caused by poor waste disposal, especially in the form of micro plastics.

Our first event was a sports day which was led by NM Group, where the staff treated the kids from the Karl Vella Foundation to a day full of fun and games, and a special appearance by Ben Camille. The Karl Vella Foundation looks after children whose family members are experiencing difficult situations, often related to illness, so it was a real pleasure to give the children a few hours of fun to help them forget their problems and enjoy their childhood.

What goals do you hope to achieve in the coming years?

Over the next few months, we hope to be able to create an effective and sustainable CSR platform through Fondazzjoni Pippo. We hope to see Fondazzjoni Pippo grow to the point where our campaigns become household names and the message we are trying to deliver is heard loud and clear - something we hope to achieve with the help of our ambassadors - Christabelle Borg, Ben Camille, Daniel Azzopardi, Sarah Zerafa, Michael Mifsud, and Helga Ellul (to name but a few).

Who is involved with Fondazzjoni Pippo?

We have a young and dynamic team behind Fondazzjoni Pippo that allows us to really play to our strengths. Thanks to our diverse backgrounds, we are confident that with the help of each team member FP will continue to grow and succeed.

Here's a list of the team members - if you would like more info just let us know.

Beppe Muscat is the founder and CEO.

Giulia Muscat is the Treasurer.

Diane Brincat is General Secretary and Communications Officer.

Sarah Grech is Operations Officer.

Timmy Aquilina is Events and Administration Officer.

What events have you got coming up?

We have a number of projects in the pipeline which we are very excited about - they will be game changers on the local scene... which is why we can't say anything just yet!