Born on May 29, 1917, in San Benedetto dei Marsi, in the province of L’Aquila, in a modest family, the second of nine children, Sabina Santilli contracted meningitis when she was only seven years old, a disease that resulted in the loss of her hearing and sight, leaving her forever in darkness and isolation. Her extraordinary story, however, begins from those terrible days. At a time when it would have been easier to surrender to fate, her family instead sought all possible avenues to give her a second chance, taking her to Rome for treatment and study, thus enabling her to 
meet the best teachers and continue her studies at Italian institutes dedicated to the blind, thus learning Braille and Malossi and regaining the ability to communicate, read and write. Not everyone knows that it was this courageous and tenacious woman from a small village in the Marsica that built a now internationally recognized reality.
In fact, Sabina has built over the years a project that aims to make deaf-blind people protagonists of their own lives, creating a network that over time has become the Lega del Filo d’Oro, the first and only Italian association that has been dealing with deafblindness as a specific disability since 1964. Every year, thanks to the work of about 400 volunteers, the Lega del Filo d’Oro welcomes hundreds of people from all over Italy. With new “tools” to communicate and with unparalleled tenacity, Sabina would thus become the symbol for an entire generation of deaf-blind people, the Italian Helen Keller, fighting all her life for their right to education and emancipation. But she was not extraordinary only for this.
Sabina’s story deserves to be remembered, celebrated and valued and can become a source of inspiration for so many young women: stubbornly silent, but also incredibly stubborn, resourceful, courageous, strong-willed. She had no means, no connections or famous connections; after all, she was born and raised in a small farming town in Abruzzo in the 1920s. But she began on her own, with the means available, writing in Braille, filling out letter after letter with thousands of dots to send to other deaf-blind people to spur them on and reassure them that one could live independently but more importantly as equals. In time, this remarkable woman would learn to communicate in 5 different languages and be independent in every daily activity, determined not to be a burden but a help.
Letters written by Sabina reached every part of Italy, bringing news and useful information to those living in the same darkness as her. This direct line would later become the Newsletter of the Golden Thread League, of which Sabina, in addition to being its founder, was also its first president. She thus laid the foundations of a project that aimed at “the reeducation of recoverable individuals, as well as carrying out social, economic, medical-specialized assistance and providing for qualification and insertion into work.” It wanted to offer deaf-blind people the chance to live a full life and realize themselves as “useful” people for themselves and for society. This was without stopping even in front of the most severe cases, in which several disabilities added up, according to what has always been one of the pillars of the Lega del Filo d’Oro: no condition is so serious that it cannot be improved with proper education. Her birthplace was later donated to the Lega del Filo d’Oro Foundation, which transformed it into the Sabina Santilli House Museum and Study Center.
The Ministry of Equal Opportunity, on the occasion of the March 8 holiday, presented the project “Women’s Italy: invisible stories of incredible women,” awarding Sabina Santilli herself among 20 exceptional women who have left their mark on the culture and growth of our country.
All his tenacity and vitality are encapsulated in his motto: forward and good courage, never backing down!
