Diplomats and army personnel are usually known for their customary jobs but it not the case when it comes to an Italian career soldier Agostino Bono, who has served as deputy defence attaché at the Italian Embassy in Islamabad for over four years (2006-10).
Following his line of duty, Bono had packed his luggage to serve his country in Rome but the legacy he has left behind in Pakistan will continue to make a huge difference in the social life of an isolated peasants’ community living in the forgotten lands of Khushpur near Faisalabad.
Moved by the poverty, illiteracy and lack of medical facilities in Khushpur, Bono’s little step to serve humanity has now entered into third year of successfully running “The Virgin Mary Medical Centre” (VMMC) in the village to not only help the locals but also foster and promote peace in the area.
After starting providing free wheelchairs, medicines and occasional medical expertise to locals in 2008, Bono managed to establish a fully operational medical centre in the area in 2009, where a doctor and three nurses are serving over 1500 villagers’.
In fact, the clinic has become an important medical facility. Thanks to the clinic’s accessibility, the frequency of many common medical disorders has been dramatically reduced or eliminated entirely.
Encouraged by successful integration and effectiveness of the free clinic, Bono is back in Pakistan to formally launch Agostino Bono Trust (ABT) so that he can also dispense free educational and vocational training services for the betterment of locals.
With the help of a volunteer board of trustees, able guidance and support of his own (Italian) embassy in Islamabad and friend Colonel Gaetano Di Lorenzo, Bono is all set to take his humanitarian passion to new heights by making the service to humanity his life ambition. He feels that he was just fulfilling the dream of an elderly local villager who approached him during one his initial visits to Khushpur and requested to build a medical facility so that precious lives of the poverty-stricken children, women and men could be saved.
Since then, it has become his own dream to help this forgotten community through all means. Initially utilising his own pocket money, then through small fund raisers and now through combined efforts of Italian and Pakistani philanthropists, Bono wants to build these small blocks of health, nutrition, education and vocational training for the residents of Khushpur.
His revisiting the project and Pakistan meant that he wants to continue to run the project from Italy with precious help of the Italian Defence Attaché, Colonel Gaetano Di Lorenzo and a board of trustworthy people who are devoting their free time to the clinic and the needy people of the village.