Our 2021 Social Report is online (click here). It is an important tool because, through the data, it allows us to understand not only the economic performance of CELIM, but also the spirit that animates our organization.

Two data, above all, appear to be particularly significant: that of direct beneficiaries, 75,058; and that of indirect beneficiaries, 937,289. These are numbers that, more than many words, give the sense of CELIM’s action. An action that operates with targeted projects, but which has a great impact on local society. The meaning of our motto, Impact to Change, is precisely this: solving critical issues is not enough, it is necessary to create a flywheel that promotes development. A development in which local populations are protagonists.

An action that, also in 2021, looked to Africa, with interventions in Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia; but also to the Balkans, where we are active in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia; and in the Middle East, where we operate in Lebanon. Fight against hunger and climate change, commitment to decent work and the reduction of inequalities, actions for sustainable cities and communities. It is an action, as Pope Francis suggests, aimed at “eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions” based on the “centrality of the human person as the primary subject responsible for development”. A focus on the centrality of the human being emerges, appreciating “our common origins, our mutual sense of belonging and the future to be shared with all”, an integral human development that includes the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, environmental .

Our work follows the guidelines of the Millennium Development Goals which, as the Pontiff himself suggests in the encyclical Laudato Si ‘, respond to the “urgent challenge of protecting our common home”