INTERSOS WORKSHOP

Workshop Syllabus

The WS’s goal is to give the students an in depth understanding of strategies, approaches and standard procedures, as well as best practices coming out from INTERSOS experience, about intervention in emergency in complex humanitarian crises. Beyond the classification of humanitarian emergencies and the theory of humanitarian aid, the practical experience of the only “single mandate” Italian NGO will help the students understand not only the general context and the main elements for a good response strategy but also the tools for implementation. The simulation based on real experience (Venezuelan crisis) and working groups (Indonesia, Syria) will facilitate the analysis of different methods and approaches in the field of humanitarian intervention.

Instructors' bio profiles

  • Marcelo Enrique Garcia Dalla Costa is the Head of INTERSOS’ Emergency Unit. He has over 15 years of humanitarian and development program management experience, particularly in complex emergencies and fragile states, managing large-scale multi-sector and multi-millions relief and development programs, personnel, and assets. Before becoming head of INTERSOS’ Emergency Unit he served as Regional Director & Overseas Emergency Focal Point (2014-2016), Africa Regional Director - Nairobi, Kenya (2010-2013) and Country Director in different locations - Sudan, North Korea, Eritrea, DRC, Perú (2003-2010).
  • Francesca Matarazzi is Emergency Coordinator at INTERSOS Emergency Unit. Before becoming emergency coordinator, she worked as INTERSOS’ senior program coordinator (2013-2018), managing operations in the East Africa Region. Francesca has experience in projects and program development and supervision in multi-cultural environment, dealing with international agencies and partners.

INTERSOS

Founded in 1992, INTERSOS is an independent humanitarian organization, which enjoys consultative status in the United Nations Economic and Social Council. INTERSOS is the Italian humanitarian organization in the forefront of humanitarian emergencies and helps people victims of wars, violence and natural disasters, with particular attention to the most vulnerable groups, such as women and children.
Since its foundation in 1992, INTERSOS has implemented humanitarian aid projects in 42 countries and four continents. INTERSOS takes its first steps in Somalia, supporting the Jowhar regional hospital, where it has remained uninterrupted until today. In the following years it was present in the main humanitarian crises, from the war in the former Yugoslavia to the genocide in Rwanda, the conflicts in Angola, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan up to the Syrian crisis and Libya, with a constant commitment to bring help to the populations in danger and, in particular, to the most disadvantaged. In natural disasters, such as El Niño in Central America, the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal, typhoon Hayan in the Philippines, INTERSOS intervened in the first emergency response, with more than 30 cargo airplanes helping people in need.
The sectors of intervention concern the distribution of essential goods for survival and emergency shelters; health and nutrition, ensuring access to vital, primary and secondary medical services, and treating malnutrition through nutritional therapies and intervening to ensure clean water and sanitation and to educate them to their proper use; migration, bringing relief to people fleeing their countries in search of security and dignity; protection, engaging in the physical and psychological protection of the most fragile sections of the population; Education, promoting the right to education and building schools, training teachers and promoting educational activities. INTERSOS has also developed specific programs for brides-girls and child soldiers and managed reclamation programs for anti-personnel mines.
The School of International Studies (SSI) signed a partnership agreement with the humanitarian organization INTERSOS, to promote knowledge in the field of international cooperation and in particular in the field of humanitarian and emergency assistance. The agreement provides for a series of common activities in the field of training, research and dissemination as well as the possibility for students of the University of Trento to carry out training periods at the headquarters of the organization in Rome, in assistance projects that INTERSOS has in 17 countries, especially in the African and Middle Eastern context.