20 YEARS OF GSI ITALIA IN MEXICO

A few months ago Sigismondo Lucidi, the co-operator who for over 20 years has been working in the Yucatan for the realization of aid and support programs for the Indian Mayan communities of that state belonging to the Mexican confederation, told me two apparently insignificant episodes.

The activity of a NGO which works in the field of international solidarity like GSI Italia, seeks confirmation over time of its commitment, in the material results produced in the local communities in which it exercises its action with programs and projects.

It is from the early 90s that El Hombre Sobre la Tierra, the Mexican NGO that GSI Italia created in Central America as a local partner in development projects, is governed by Angela Petruso and Sigismondo Lucidi. Twenty and more years that led to the creation of 13 cooperatives engaged in the most varied fields of craftsmanship, from organic farming to fish farming, from the manufacture of hammocks to the creation of ethnic sewing and embroidery ateliers, from the construction of tourist villages to the construction of commercial structures for the sale of cooperative products in the capital city of the region.

A constant, convinced, intelligent job that led some years ago to the recognition and award by the Mexican government of one of the seven major and best successful social investments in the field of international cooperation in Mexico.

On the occasion of Lucidi’s visit in Italy, during a convivial meeting where he told me the activity of that year in the territory, he also told me a simple report event which was emotionally very engaging for me.

– You know, this year we had the local elections in Yucatan and a mayor and seven councilors were elected among the members of our cooperatives –

He was telling me, without realizing it, that over the years we had spent well our time and our money and that of our donors, going beyond the realization of material development activities, having politically transformed the reality in which we worked.

The information reported in the news took on the meaning of a story for me. The story of a commitment of people convinced that “if you want you can do it”. It is possible to give a civic conscience and a desire for self-determination to the Indians, workers of the earth and together builders of communities, administrators of the common goods and builders of their own new history. As protagonists.

Gather in a flash of conversation the fruitfulness of a commitment, the common one of expatriate volunteers, of members of GSI Italia, operating in the world through the various El Hombre Sobre la Tierra, Bomoyi, Faa i Tuora, associations created by GSI Italia in support of its commitment to solidarity with the poor and marginalized on the planet, it is worth a daily commitment that produces concrete and fruitful responses in the regions of poverty and courage, of despair and hope, where we have chosen to be useful tools for change and development.