Our volunteers get in touch with the Butezi community, with whom they start a collaboration that will last 17 years.

By gradually meeting the needs, one works on multiple sectors: food and agricultural, healthcare, educational one. In these years, the greatest success is the start of the Center of Social Development (CDS Butezi) and of the union of cooperatives UNICOOP.

ASPEm starts to promote fair trade products on the territory of Cantù, thanks to the collaboration with the World Shop in Bolzano and Rovato (BS, Italy).

It consist of small booths and random initiatives that start to generate knowledge and interest.

ASPEm joins the editorial staff of the monthly magazine “Volunteers for development”, alongside two historic NGO in Turin: CISV and CCM (merged with Amref in 2020). The editorial collaboration translated in dialogue, collaboration and constant dialogue.

ASPEm starts its presence in South America beginning in the marginalised districts in Lima, where big migratory crowds have settled in conditions of extreme poverty and total social exclusion.

In this context, our aid workers are involved in risk management and in rights protection for street children.

It will still be a sensible and important subject for us.

ASPEm continues the building of cultural and social interconnections on its territory too: it promotes one of the first African film festivals in Italy at the Cinema Gloria in Como; “Il Ponte” (The Bridge) is born in Cantù, it’s a world shop for fair trade managed by volunteers back from Butezi.

ASPEm promotes a key campaign, marking a fundamental turning point in Peruvian legislation.
Launched from Italy, “Without documents, we are like shadows” led to the approval of the Law on the Documentation of Minors, allowing the registration of unaccompanied minors in the civil registry.
From now on, they are citizens with full rights.

ASPEm starts the Global Citizenship Education sector.

Educational courses are structured starting from the experience acquired in cooperation projects: they are participatory activities that activate critical thinking and global awareness. The network collaboration with other NGOs develops on a new front, with new ways and languges.

ASPEm has the opportunity to strengthen the engagement in South America. From the Peruvian experience, we are invited to support a project in Bolivia, for the retrieval of amaranth cultivation, a traditional agricultural crop.

Here we get in touch with communities living in the rural spaces of El Alto (La Paz). In dialogue with people, a specific project for the Country starts.

The White Helmets project

ASPEm sends the two first volunteers of Civilian Alternative Service in Lima, via the FOCSIV network.

European Volunteering

With the aim of expanding opportunities for young Europeans to grow and train, ASPEm opens itself to mobility programmes offered by the European Union: it’s an important occasion to promote intercultural exchange, solidarity and the development of professional and personal competences, thanks to volunteering and international cooperation experiences.

ASPEm coordinates the Regional project for Global Citizenship Education “Green School”, with the collaboration of 50 entities on the Lombard territory.

In 2018, ASPEm participates in the project “DiMMi di Storie Migranti”, actively contributing to collecting and valorising autobiographic narration by migrants. The DiMMi committee is established: it has the job of coordinating Lombard committees activities, with the aim of promoting the project on the territory and to encourage intercultural dialogue thanks to migratory experiences. The Committee, still working, represents a point of reference for the diffusion of a collective, inclusive and participated memory. Since 2022 ASPEm is also part of the scientific committee of the project. Starting with DiMMi, ASPEm attention for the subject of migrants narration remains high.

ASPEm starts cooperation activities in Ethiopia, supporting some small interventions with local partners in different areas of the Country.

In 2022, ASPEm widens its international engagement starting activities in Morocco. With a Capacity Building project, the association is dedicated to strengthen local reality competences in volunteering management. Simultaneously, the plans for sending the first Alternative Civilian Service volunteers are taking form and the foundations are laid for developing new cooperation projects, consolidating ASPEm role as a bridge between communities and the opportunity of shared growth.