Nancy Santullo
Founder and Executive Director
From the time she found her way to an indigenous village in the Peruvian Amazon during a trip to “access a deeper knowing” in her life in 1999, this former Los Angeles fashion and advertising photographer’s commitment to improving the health of children and families in the Manu Biosphere Reserve and National Park has only grown stronger.
Nancy’s can-do spirit, positivity, love of nature, and seeing the good in people, are the heartbeat of Rainforest Flow. They are the driving force that has guided the organization’s vision for more than 20 years.
After piloting a successful 5-year culturally integrated water, sanitation, health, and technical and vocational training programs in the indigenous village of Huacaria, Nancy scaled and replicated the program in three additional communities.
Under Nancy’s guidance, Rainforest Flow has positively impacted the health of three generations of indigenous people in Peru’s Amazon rainforest.
She attributes much of her perseverance to lessons learned from her daily paper route and growing up after school at the Girls Club of America in Bristol, Connecticut, the generosity of mentors along the way, and the love of her close-knit Italian family.
Nancy’s sights are now set on building a permanent physical home for The Rainforest Flow WASH Education + Research Center (WERC) in the rainforest. The Center will be a gathering place for indigenous people to learn and share information, to become stewards of the health of their communities and environment.
Nancy spends half of her life in the rainforest and most of the rest collaborating with donors, community organizations, anthropologists, health experts, engineers, and technology partners to realize this Center, and her dream to help tens of thousands of indigenous people gain access to life-giving human services.
