NGOs and the School: I made it through this year, despite serious health problems that affected one of my closest family members (luckily in very good resolution now), the relocation of activities to Madrid and the shift of part of the team, the strong presence in Rome (partners, children and dear friends) and the direct and indirect work in order to give the best to our students.
It has been a pretty rough year, but it gave us many hard lessons that I welcome with gratitude.
The first one, was the School and Staff’s endurance, under extremely difficult conditions, without passing the burden on to students or colleagues. Confronted with some recruitment errors (I admit that working with us is very difficult for the standards we require) the staff has shown its unity in wanting to give the best to students and colleagues. I recall, just to bring up some examples, the many successful professional placements of students, achieved thanks to the hard work of the Career Service, the field experiences in Lebanon and Brindisi, ‘hard’ workshops like the one in Brussels. Among all, a special thanks to Rocío Requena, who really made the difference, to Cinzia D’Intino (Head of Didactics is an ‘understatement’) and to Federico Atzori (Master FRAME Coordinator and Communications Coordinator). They worked really hard!
The second lesson, is the genuine affection, surrounding the School, shown by the NGOs and the many internal friends. This is good for the health and soul, especially for students. Many HRM worked hard and ‘for free’ in order to deliver Job Interviews and to prepare students in the best way, and we want to thank them publicly:
Paolo Pastore – FAIRTRADE ITALIA, Greta Cipriani – INTERSOS, Chiara Grecchi e Rosangela Visconte – EMERGENCY, Lucia Forte – CUAMM, Marco Benassi – CEFA, Alessia Sebillo – DIESIS, Claudia De Noia e Simona Valdini – CESVI, Federico Filipponi – ENGIM, Gian Paolo Montini ed Elena Palcich – PETER PAN ONLUS, Alessandro Baldo – Soleterre ONLUS, Elena Chiamberlano – L’AFRICA CHIAMA ONLUS, Tiziana Fulgenzi – WE WORLD ONLUS, Simone Sgueo – CROCE ROSSA ITALIANA.
Such strong affection and closeness, brought us to internally elect the ‘colleagues of the year’, those who were the closest to the School and who contributed the most to its success in 2017, in the three Masters. Here are the ‘winners’:
Sergio Vecchiarelli from INTERSOS, for Master PMC – he provided a transversal contribution and ‘back office’ support on difficult themes as economic and financial management, for his support to the organisation of the Field experience in Beirut and for the many precious moments discussing and collaborating. Thank you, Sergio!
Lodovico Mariani for HOPE, who, even in the shift to his new role as Financial Director at AMREF Health Italia (coming from INTERSOS), stayed strong and contributed to the further development of the quality of our Master in Humanitarian Emergencies Management, being patient with some students who sometimes were a bit difficult. Hold on, Lodovico!
Giampiero Giacomel for FRAME, Fundraising Resp. for the Royal Scottish Opera (Glasgow), for his 360 degrees participation in the Master and for the organisation of the field experience in the Scottish highlands. Giampiero, soon we’ll go for that tour in the Scottish Whisky distilleries, first stop: the smoked Islay.
But my thanks, of course, also go to Silvia Fontana, for the introduction of a “challenge” style in the Career Development Service and for the ability of the service to create so many opportunities, the sobering work on many aspects of Alessio di Carlo, who has been promoted on the field as PMC 2018 Director, Stefano Oltolini (Coopi) who for nearly 20 years, has been a ‘road companion’ of the School and a great ‘Commissioner’ in the final exams, and Tanja Berretta for her methodological support to HOPE students’ Project Work.
Thank you so much everyone, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and…
A special hug to our Alumni Community, with more and more active fellows!
By Marco Crescenzi, Social Change School President
