"All the aid that was promised to us is finally arriving — around 200 tonnes of food, emergency shelter kits, tarpaulins for protection from the rain, solar lamps and torches, water purification tablets. Thanks to the European Union and also to the Italian ambassador, we managed to channel the aid directly via air freight to Yangon. And from there, we are distributing it to the areas where we are present." The speaker is Maurizio Carrara, founder and today Honorary President of Fondazione Cesvi, an organisation committed for forty years to international cooperation and development, and active for twenty years in Myanmar (formerly Burma) with several projects.

Carrara recently published a book on Cesvi's first four decades, titled 40. I nostri anni di solidarietà, and that was meant to be the sole subject of the interview. But following the devastating earthquake of 28 March and the subsequent magnitude-5.5 aftershocks on 13 April in the Mandalay area, it would have been impossible not to start there — and with Cesvi's prompt response in this part of Asia.

Myanmar, just the latest emergency managed by Cesvi

"We have a long knowledge of the country, and we are now in the area hardest hit by the earthquake, where thousands upon thousands of people need help. The political situation in Myanmar does not work in our favour, but also thanks to other local organisations, we are gradually managing to carry out our distribution work. It is our duty to be there."

Myanmar is just the latest of the many emergencies managed over the years by Cesvi — one "chapter" in the long history of the Foundation that Carrara recounts, starting from the very first steps. "Forty years is an important and meaningful milestone for an organisation created by a group of young people who thought they would do a bit of solidarity work with friends who were abroad working as doctors or agronomists. Through great effort and passion, we found ourselves having built one of the most significant Italian non-governmental organisations. I think it is a fine achievement and well worth celebrating."

Emergencies, but not only

Talking about Cesvi's emergency activities feels almost natural, because as Carrara recalls, "the historical period we are living through places emergency response as the main challenge: there are wars, conflicts between peoples, earthquakes, natural disasters. So we are called to operate in these contexts, as in Myanmar. Yet our mandate is to move from emergency to development."

Returning to the topic of the earthquake in Asia, Carrara explains that as soon as the situation can be stabilised, Cesvi will return to its regular work, which is helping people and communities in the development of their productive activities and their health.

From a small project to an organisation active on four continents

Having started with a project in Nicaragua, Cesvi today works across almost every continent, both with emergency interventions and with cooperation and development projects, and employs 600 staff in overseas offices, plus 80 at its main headquarters in Bergamo. Carrara's book is not merely a chronicle of these years, but also recounts curiosities, emotions and experiences — as well as difficult moments, such as those lived through during the war in the former Yugoslav countries.

"In the early 1990s we were not ready for something like that. We were still all volunteers, we worked on an occasional basis, and the organisation was still very small. There were bombardments over Sarajevo while we were building our office 70 kilometres away; bringing aid meant travelling along secondary roads the whole way to avoid running into dangerous war situations."

Takunda, the first healthy baby born to an HIV-positive mother

In the interview, the Honorary President recalls above all the moments when Cesvi was able to make a difference — such as the birth in 2001 of Takunda, the first healthy baby born to an HIV-positive mother in Zimbabwe, now a 23-year-old with a degree in Social Sciences. In the book, the author dedicates an entire short chapter to his story and to that of his mother, Safina, who, before giving birth to him, had lost a baby to AIDS shortly after birth.

"At that time, a positive mother meant a young woman from a village, pregnant, who underwent the rapid test to find out whether she was HIV-negative or positive, and who, after a positive result, was driven out of her community." Safina was the first pregnant woman in the African country to be treated with antiretroviral drugs. "She came to live near the hospital and we followed her for nine months, until Takunda was born. It was a very moving moment — for the doctors, but also for all of us back at the office." Carrara continues: "This child represented, for us, our concrete commitment." Thanks to Cesvi and the awareness and fundraising campaign launched in 2001, thousands of children were born healthy in Zimbabwe.

What to hope for in the next 40 years of Cesvi?

Cooperation and development in our country still have plenty of room to grow and improve. "In Italy we have so many NGOs that none of them has managed to become significant and important enough to raise funds abroad as well," says Carrara. "No Italian organisation has established an international profile, even though many operate all over the world. If I can wish for something, it is that the Italian NGOs — the most serious ones, the most operational ones — manage to come together to build the largest Italian solidarity organisation in the world. That would also be a fine signal to those who govern our country today, or will do so in the future."