Zambia: since 1982 working to grow a sustainable world

CELIM – Centro Laici Italiani per le Missioni – is an Non-governmental Organisation founded in 1954, registered in the OSC (Civil Society Organisations) book of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and recognized by the European Union.
We handle projects of international cooperation in Africa, in the Balkans and in the Middle East, with the help of many volunteers and professionals on the one side and the collaboration of local authorities and local partners on the other.
In Italy we promote volunteer work and organize courses in schools, meetings and creative workshops with the aim of closing the gap between different cultures, promoting their integration.

  • 20

    ongoing projects

  • 502,175

    beneficiaries alongside whom we have worked over the last 11 years

  • 85

    cents of every euro we receive is spent to implement activities in 2023

  • 70

    the years of activities

Our Mission

In three words: Impact to change

Our interventions are targeted and are the result of a careful analysis of available resources and local situation. Their effects are permanent and live on with the community, continuously changing it and being transformed with it.
Our projects are motivated by change-oriented strategies and trust in teamwork.

Promoting lasting progress of communities by sharing self-determination processes and training with interventions of fixed duration

Our staff always works in synergy with reputable local operators and organizations: the goal is to train personnel so that, at the end of the intervention, they are able to manage independently launched projects.
Projects always have a specific timeframe, although CELIM keeps on monitoring them over time.
Each project is made possible thanks to specialized and motivated people.

Giulia and Joe with students of the Kalabash School in Mongu, Zambia

Our volunteers are "artisans of development"

Our volunteers combine their experience and skills with their passion and their spirit of service, while respecting the cultures they encounter. We call them “artisans of development” because with precise, targeted actions and without intruding, they help to bring practical improvements to the lives of many people.

Our values

The roots that guide our choices

Family: the fundamental element of every type of community

We encourage international volunteering of families and young couples, as well as individuals. It is no coincidence that among the returning lay missionaries there are many families belonging to family community experiences.

Partnership, project self-sufficiency and autonomy of beneficiaries 

In those countries where we work, we co-operate with local partners, helping them implement activities with the aim of creating the conditions of autonomy on which a new and surprising future can be built.

Christian inspiration

The Gospel guided the founders, in 1954, within Milan’s Diocesan world in support of missionary activity in the southern hemisphere. Recent reference documents are the encyclicals ‘Laudato Sì’ and ‘Fratelli Tutti’: this is the ideal thrust that guides our actions, in welcoming those who choose to join CELIM even coming from other paths.

Our accounts

Financial statements and activities: our transparency

Communities are the beneficiaries of our actions

The goals achieved must be shared so that they become the heritage of all.

What have we achieved, with what money and who helped us?
To these legitimate questions on transparency, we reply providing audited economic and financial statements to field experts and a social report intended to make all this information more accessible to all of you who help us.
In 2022:

In keeping with the spirit of transparency and according to the article 1 (125) of the Italian Law 124/2017, we publish the amount of the financings perceived from the Public Administration during 2022: click here (pdf in Italian).

Centro Laici Italiani per le Missioni
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