Roberto Wirth Fund Onlus

In 1992 Roberto Wirth, profoundly deaf from birth, created the Roberto Wirth Fund. Since then, every year, in collaboration with the Fulbright Commission, a scholarship is awarded to young deaf individuals who want to specialize in child deafness.

Thanks to the “Roberto Wirth” scholarship, winners can attend courses in Education, Psychology and Counseling at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, the only bilingual university in the world (American Sign Language and English) that is fully accessible to deaf and hard of hearing students.

In 2004, Roberto Wirth wanted to make a deeper commitment to deaf and deafblind children and opened the Roberto Wirth Fund Onlus, a non-profit association in favor of deaf and deafblind children from 0 to 6 years of age.

Roberto Wirth

In 1975, Roberto Wirth graduated with a degree in Hotel Management at Cornell University in Ithaca. For years he has been very active in the field of deafness in Italy and abroad.

During his stay in Hawaii, he was the President of the Silent Aloha Association and a member of the Mayor’s Committee for the disabled in Honolulu. The mayor also appointed him to teach American Sign Language (ASL) to the managers of several hotels and lectured at The Governor’s Conferences in Hawaii. In Washington he sat on board of directors of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

He has received numerous personal awards both in Italy and America and two honorary degrees from Lynn University in 2006 and Gallaudet University in 2009.

Roberto Wirth is an influential figure in numerous university boards and associations involved in supporting deaf individuals worldwide, including Gallaudet University and The National Technical Institute for the Deaf- Institute of Technology in Rochester. He has also recently founded the “A Sense of Wirth” Association in New York City.

In Rome he remains the founder and director of the Roberto Wirth Fund Onlus.