Supporting displaced Syrian families fleeing the war in north-eastern Syria by sending medicines, distributing hygiene kits and equipping the health centres of our partner, the Kurdish Red Crescent (Heyva Sor a Kurd): this is the aim of 'Safe'.

Thanks to the support of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), the Otto per Mille of the Waldensian Church and the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, we are able to guarantee health care to thousands of civilians on a daily basis, who would otherwise not have access to adequate treatment.

Launched in July 2016, during the first phase we started distributing medicines and first aid kits, supporting and setting up four clinics (Derik, Amude and Serikaniye and Qamishlo).

In just 6 months of work, we have ensured free access to basic services for internal medicine, paediatrics and reproductive health, set up pharmaceutical dispensaries, which are now present in all clinics, offered leishmaniasis treatment, cancer treatment and health care for transfusion and post-transplant patients. We set up 3 humanitarian shipments covering the needs of 40,000 dependents, distributed hygiene and sanitation kits for 600 families.

At the same time, we laid the foundations for long-term work that focused on training for Kurdish Red Crescent workers, both in administrative-managerial and psycho-social support.

The second phase of the project, launched at the end of May 2017, saw a further expansion of activities and presence on the ground.

From the 4 initial clinics, we have chosen to intensify our work by increasing the number of health centres supported to 6 and by strengthening the offer of paediatric and reproductive health services: once again, we choose to pay special attention to the most vulnerable who risk bearing the double burden of war and displacement, such as women and children, who need specific attention and precise intervention plans.

The intervention was also extended to displaced persons in Raqqa, equipping the clinic in Serekanye (Ras el Ein) with an ambulance system capable of serving the camps of the fleeing displaced persons.

The goal is to reach over 88,000 displaced people in 10 months, not forgetting Iraqi refugees who have crossed the border fleeing Mosul in recent months. In addition, at least 100 staff members of the Kurdish Red Crescent will be able to receive specialised training on reproductive health protection and combating gender-based violence, strengthening their knowledge and the effectiveness of their intervention.

After years of commitment in Iraq, we opened a new office in the spring of 2016 in the city of Sulaimania, in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, where work began immediately on the 'Taleem Lil jameeh' (Education for All) project, an emergency initiative targeting Syrian refugees and host communities in the area, supported by the Italian Cooperation and managed together with our long-standing Iraqi partners in Al Mesalla.

With a special focus on students and teachers, the project envisages the construction of a Youth Education Centre to offer non-formal education activities to youngsters from the Syrian refugee camp in Arbat, 20 kilometres from Sulaimania: sports, circus, music and theatre will be offered inside a camp housing more than 6,000 people, including more than 1,000 minors.

The construction of the centre will be done using the prefabricated building technique, already used to build the Ashti school in Erbil (link), with the hope that one day the camp's guests will be able to return to their home countries, now devastated by war and the presence of Daesh.

The same project provides for the provision of school transport: in fact, in the entire Sulaimania Governorate, which is currently home to some 30,000 Syrian refugees, only 6 school facilities host small Syrianə students.

Most of the refugees live in the capital, where unfortunately the critical economic conditions of the families often do not allow the children to reach the schools. Therefore, we will provide 7 microbuses, capable of transporting a total of about 200 children daily, who will be able to attend school.

Finally, the teaching staff of the schools in Kobani and Qerga, the same schools that will benefit from the transport service, will receive training in psychosocial support, to enable them to acquire the right tools to work with children who, despite their young age, have already suffered traumas such as war and uprooting from their birth context.

In May 2016, as part of our work to welcome migrants, and after several months on the island of Lesvos, we designed our 'Solidarity Van'.

A 'solidarity camper van', equipped with solar panels, computers, a printer, an antenna to create a wi-fi area and a generator to charge phones and mobile devices.

Two operatorsə left for the Balkans, where the flow of migrants fleeing to try to cross Europe's borders had shifted after the EU-Turkey agreement on the refoulement of migrants came into force in January 2016.

We travelled along and followed the Balkan Route 'accompanying' families in transit and providing them with the possibility of recharging their phones, connecting to the Internet, being oriented on their rights, reception services, and waiting times at the borders.

A job we had done for a long time in the past on the Iraqi border, where hundreds of families fleeing the war in Syria started arriving since 2013. What we learnt there we took between Serbia and Hungary, where the camper van moved for three months following the emergency, then ending its mission in the Thessaloniki area.

The Van returned to Italy on 30 August, and all our equipment was donated to the Serbian organisation 'iHO', with which we had already collaborated in the past, and which will continue to provide assistance.

Guaranteeing an educational pathway and psycho-social support to those who have remained outside formal educational structures because they have fled the war and are now refugees. This is the objective of the 'Learning4Life' project, active in Jordan and aimed at the youngest members of the Syrian community.

To leave their country at war, to flee to a safer place, to find shelter in Jordan, to start living as refugeesə. This is the fate of thousands of Syrian families, who five years after the outbreak of the Syrian conflict are trying to survive as best they can in sometimes very difficult situations. Being a refugee often also means that children remain outside the school circuit, sometimes interrupting their studies forever, exposed to the risk of recruitment for child labour. This is why it is necessary to provide facilities that can guarantee formal and parallel education, to imagine schools where space is lacking, to organise play and recreational activities that are also supportive and helpful in overcoming the traumas of war.

It is in response to this need and in an attempt to fill these gaps that our 'Learning4Life' programme was conceived: dedicated to Syrian refugees in Jordan, with a special focus on children and teenagers and supported by OCHA.

The aim is to create educational spaces to provide educational, cognitive, social and emotional support to young victims of the Syrian crisis, increasing their opportunities to access education.

The project involves training 28 teachers and educators to provide psycho-social support to children and young people, as well as distributing school materials and organising classes, collective learning moments and recreational activities to minimise the risk of dropping out of school and provide young people with the tools to freely build their future.
In parallel, over 200 families will participate in a series of awareness-raising meetings on child protection and violence prevention.

5,000 children affected by the Syrian crisis will have access to reliable educational facilities and school materials; 1,600 adolescents will take part in intensive education programmes through the two informal school centres located in Irbid and Ramtha where we will operate; an equal number will take part in psycho-social support recreational activities.

The first step towards regaining a future that the war has denied is to return to education, to be able to complete one's schooling, to start living a normal life again. After years of working alongside people who have fled Syria to neighbouring countries, this new project in Jordan is aimed at the part of the population that pays the price of this conflict most of all: children, who have the right to write their own future.

Gynaecological examinations, pre- and post-natal care, counselling, ultrasound scans, awareness and knowledge meetings dedicated to the protection of women and childrenə: this is the heart of our 'Zhyan' (Life) project, active in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and in particular in the Erbil area and supported by AICS - Italian Cooperation, Otto per Mille of the Waldensian Church, the Province of Bolzano, CCFD-Terre Solidaire and private donors.

A three-year programme to support the health of displaced Iraqi women, Syrian refugees and host communities through reproductive health and psychosocial support services in four clinics in Erbil Governorate. During the 3 phases, the Zhyan project set up the clinics, trained the staff, promoted awareness-raising campaigns and set up a mobile unit to reach the most vulnerable cases in remote areas and IDP camps.

At the heart of the intervention, launched in 2015, was the opening of four clinics dedicated to displaced Iraqi and Syrian refugee women to guarantee them the right to reproductive health despite the terrible conditions of displacement they share after fleeing war and Daesh violence.

Inaugurated on International Women's Day, 8 March 2015, the clinics have to date assisted more than 13,000 women, also thanks to the support of a mobile unit equipped with instruments and medicines, which moves and is always available among the refugee camps to intercept the needs of the women living there. At work in the clinics and in the mobile unit are doctors, nurses and specialised workers, who themselves have suffered displacement conditions: an added value for those who seek their advice, able to overcome language and cultural barriers.

The same unit was deployed to offer support to women fleeing Mosul following the offensive launched to liberate the city in late 2016. In the latest phase, a mobile health clinic is to be set up to enable medical personnel to better monitor the area north of Mosul. The implementation of new activities in the already active clinics is also planned.

Within the framework of our work for the reception of migrants and refugees, in 2016 we decided to support the S.T.A.M.P. project in Italy, a mobile helpdesk aimed at migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and transiters in the urban area of Rome. The project provides, free of charge, a number of services and tools to support the transit of those who want to continue their journey or to improve the reception conditions and possibilities of autonomy of those who have decided to stay in Italy, or have been forced to stay there.

S.T.A.M.P. provides three areas of intervention: language guidance and basic information (on transport, offices, documents), legal assistance and health guidance. It also provides a free wi-fi connection area and computers equipped with headsets and microphones for Skype calls.

The project was devised by the 'Resistenze Meticce' network, which has already been active in Rome for years in the bottom-up assistance of migrants and refugees, and follows, like the 'Solidarity Van', the principle of accompanying people in need of assistance.

During 2017, S.T.A.M.P. activists also carried out important work monitoring and documenting violence and rights violations against migrants in the Taranto HotSpot and along the Ventimiglia border.

Promoting dialogue between civil society, local authorities and institutions in Iraq and Italy. Offer social services and sharing spaces to young Iraqis, especially those belonging to the Christian, Ezid, Kakai, Shabak, Turkmen minorities. To build youth centres together, in which the peculiarities of their communities are considered an asset for Iraqi society, once a mosaic of civilisations, cultures, religions.

These are the objectives of the project Youth Spring Across Ethnicities: a new social alliance to empower youth of minorities in North Iraq and KRG, launched in 2014, supported by the European Union, CEI, Tavola Valdese - Ufficio Otto per Mille and the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, and carried out in partnership with ARCI Toscana.

When the project was conceived Daesh had not yet occupied Mosul, nor brought destruction to the Nineveh Plain. The idea was to help strengthen gender equality and youth integration policies, and was to take place in five locations: Mosul, Bashiqa, Qaraqosh, Sinjar and Khabat. Places on the border between Iraqi Kurdistan and northern Iraq, disputed between the respective governments, the subject of continuous tensions. Areas that, in the summer of 2014, ended up at the centre of the vortex of violence caused by Daesh.

For this reason, the project was rethought and moved.

The communities involved remained the same, but were forced to flee and find new homes, elsewhere. We moved with them, and today 'Youth Spring' has led to the opening of four youth centres in Erbil, Dohuk, Sulaimania and Zummar.

A great many activities are planned and already implemented: from theatre training to street art (with the 'Niente Paura' project) and comic strip courses with Claudio Calia, the Youth Centres have become a point of reference for young people, and a place where they can re-appropriate spaces, acting and using them according to their needs. In fact, the conception, planning and implementation of the project is taken care of by young people, in constant collaboration with local institutions.

These activities are complemented by training sessions in collaboration with local social workers and operatorsə. Topics include human rights, peacebuilding (history, theory and practice of the nonviolent approach to conflict resolution), peace education, the use of art as a tool for promoting peace. And again, promotion of activism: non-violent action, use of media and social networks, freedom of thought, speech and association. Finally, numerous youth and cultural exchanges with Italy are planned.

This work will continue for the next few years, with the aim of making the centres places of knowledge and exchange in which to promote a culture of tolerance and integration between the different Iraqi linguistic and religious groups.

In the autumn of 2014, Un Ponte Per initiated together with UNHCR an assistance, orientation and communication programme for displaced Iraqis and Syrian refugees in the Dohuk and Erbil areas.

People often lost, alone, without reference points, to whom we provided the tools for orientation in this difficult situation of displacement. Through a mass communication programme, we have carried out information and awareness-raising campaigns, which have ranged from birth registration to camp fire prevention; from the rational use of water resources to health prevention; from raising awareness against gender-based violence to the necessary information on the humanitarian services in the camps to which displaced people and refugees are entitled, and can access. To build efficient communication that responds to the real needs of people in crisis situations requires the cooperation of all.

This is why we have dedicated part of our work to building positive relationships between the many humanitarian organisations working in the emergency, local communities, authorities and the regional government. Our campaigns aim at intercepting and empowering the most active people in the communities, so that they themselves can handle the major problems encountered in these situations, always with our active support.

We achieve this through the production of simple and immediate graphic materials, building workshops and focus groups, using traditional media and social networks.

Finally, with the offensive to liberate Mosul in October 2016, a team of project workers was engaged in orienting displaced people arriving in Debaga camp from the area, offering information on the services they are entitled to, promoting campaigns for their safety, and monitoring people's needs and requirements.

In 2015, some 350,000 people, fleeing Turkey, landed on the small Greek island of Lesvos.

Here, in the total absence of formal reception structures and mechanisms, a great experiment in volunteerism and grassroots activism took place: month after month, hundreds of people from all over the world arrived on Lesvos to self-organise the reception and support fleeing migrants from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On 2 January 2016, an initial delegation of nine Un Ponte Per activists left for Lesvos, where they helped with the reception.

We returned a few months later with the permanent presence of one of our workers, who stayed in Lesvos for three months, organising four relays of volunteers who took turns to work on the coasts and in the aid sorting warehouses.

Until the agreement between the EU and Turkey was signed on 20 March 2016, changing the scenario: informal camps built by volunteers were cleared, forced deportations of migrants to Turkey began, and landings on Lesvos stopped.

This is why we questioned how to continue our work. We spent a month in Athens following migrants who had been staying in Piraeus for a long time.

Many people were there waiting for a further stage and we chose to 'accompany themə' with the 'Solidarity Van'.

Jordan is one of the countries most affected by the consequences of the exodus of Syrian refugees. To address this ongoing emergency, in December 2013 together with the Jordanian Women's Union (JWU) we launched with UNFPA support the "Hemayati!" project, a 12-month programme to assist Syrian refugee women.

In a year of working in the four JWU clinics in Amman, Zarqa, Mafrat and Ibrid, we have offered multi-sectoral services to women, prioritising reproductive health but also offering psychosocial support and prevention of gender-based violence through free legal assistance provided by a team of lawyers.

Gynaecologists, midwives, nurses, psychologists, lawyers and social workers worked together in the clinics, where information meetings on reproductive health, family planning, early marriage and women's rights were also held. Medicines and hygiene kits were also distributed here.

Finally, in a second phase, literacy, computer and handicraft courses were held, so as to create a welcoming pathway not limited to the provision of services, but able to engage women in work activities and offer them a minimum of opportunities.

In 12 months of work, we have carried out over 5,000 visits, and involved some 3,000 people in awareness-raising meetings on reproductive health and against gender-based violence.