After a short illness, entrepreneur Gianni Vescovo, a piece of Italian history in Kenya, passed away.
A Venetian, 82 years old, arrived in Kenya at a very young age in the early 1960s thanks to the Consolata missionaries, after a variety of jobs to establish himself in the African country as a true emigrant, in 1968 Vescovo founded Italproducts in Nairobi, a company specialising in importing and assembling Italian kitchen and hotel equipment. Starting from nothing, with his incredible will and blind dedication to his work, Vescovo was one of the first countrymen to be recognised as an Italian excellence in Kenya.
Many tourist businesses and restaurants, not only of compatriots, in the country benefited from his products.
Bishop had a reserved and sometimes edgy character, but the pride of what he had built up from nothing melted him like a child.
He used to say of him: 'I am not a writer nor a storyteller, I don't like to talk about myself and I prefer facts to talk. My experience of 50 years and more in Africa and my knowledge of the local language and English make my operations more fluid and effective. I know everyone here and everyone knows me, from the Italian Embassy to the Italians who have lived and worked here all their lives, to the locals with whom I work and collaborate. So with me the unknowns do not exist'.
Recently the most important national newspaper, the Daily Nation, had dedicated an extensive article to him for the half-century of success of his Italproducts. We had contacted him for an interview and, chatty as we would not have expected, he had given us an appointment for a day that unfortunately will never come: Gianni Vescovo was hospitalised in Nairobi at the end of May, in a condition that was already quite serious. In recent days he has been urgently transferred to Italy, in the hope of a miracle.
From the portal of Italians in Kenya, the most heartfelt condolences to the loved ones he left behind.