Born from a rich experience among friends living the charism of Communion and Liberation, AVSI Foundation was established in 1972 to carry out humanitarian and development projects world-wide. AVSI-USA – a member of the AVSI Foundation – is a non-profit organization that works with people and communities in developing countries to “restore dignity and build resilience in the face of poverty and marginalization.” AVSI-USA works in dozens of countries including Uganda, Brazil, Haiti, Mexico, and Ecuador as well as locally in the US with the Restorative Freedom Initiative. Recently, one of AVSI’s projects was featured at a United States Senate hearing by Samantha Power, administrator of USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), as an exemplary model for alleviating poverty with a measurable return on investment. We asked Ezio Castelli, President Emeritus of AVSI-USA, and Jackie Aldrette, Executive Director of AVSI-USA, to share with us the founding vision of AVSI and what they have learned in these 20+ years of experience bringing AVSI into the US public sphere.

Could you tell us how AVSI started and its founding vision?

Jackie: In 1971, Ezio left Italy with a group of lay professional people for Zaire (now The Democratic Republic of Congo) , the former Belgian colony, invited by a missionary priest to live with the community and collaborate on a long-term social and economic rural development program through the Social Initiatives promoted by the Catholic Diocese of Uvira. That was the seed that eventually became AVSI. In fact, in 1972, a group of their friends in Italy who belonged to the experience of Communion and Liberation, decided to set up a formal association that would support the work of the volunteers and help it continue.

Ezio: I can add that some of us were among those who, at that time in CL, were starting to recognize and experience how the educational proposal of Fr. Giussani was generating a fulfillment of life through a radical dedication to God in virginity, obedience, poverty, and mission in the ordinary conditions of each person’s life and work. I found in myself a providential correspondence with the perspective offered by the missionary father who had been invited by Fr. Giussani to present the initiative in Congo - in particular the way to engage in an explicit missionary presence in a total dedication to God through work and in a precise companionship. Talking to Fr. Giussani of my intention to join this initiative, he bet on my freedom and challenged me to follow what I had recognized as true, recommending to me and the others to stay in touch with him and the budding group of lay people within the movement of CL which was taking a clearer shape: the Memores Domini.

How did AVSI end up in the United States?

Jackie: In 2000, a couple of Italians and Americans who were familiar with AVSI's work thought that an AVSI presence in the US would be of value for the movement here. AVSI’s leadership in Mlian proposed to Ezio - who was working full time at the AVSI headquarters - to move to New York to give life to AVSI-USA. This is where my story connects with Ezio's. I was in college around that time and had grown up in Maryland. I got to know CL when I was in high school, had a great experience with CLU when I was in college, and started hearing about AVSI. I already knew at that point that I wanted to work in the field of international development, and when I heard about AVSI, I fell in love. I started reading everything I could, but I never thought there was a possibility to work for AVSI because it was in Milan and I was in the US. Then, I was back in DC doing a master's in development economics when somebody told me about Ezio. We had one coffee and decided that it was a match made in heaven.



How did AVSI begin to gain footing in the US non-profit landscape?

Jackie: At that time, USAID had been very engaged in Uganda responding to the crisis of the civil war in the northern part of the country. As they were doing programming and funding partners there, they discovered AVSI and how we were trying to provide a psychosocial approach to the trauma that these communities were experiencing. AVSI’s work in Uganda was not just giving things – food and shelter – to people, it was accompanying people in the midst of their pain and suffering, helping them to rebuild their lives. That was very striking to USAID and made them want to get to know our staff there. Looking back, it is a very interesting beginning because it was a discovery by USAID in front of a fact that they couldn't ignore, which was that these AVSI people were accompanying highly vulnerable, suffering children and families in a different way.

Your website focuses on “the person as protagonist.” Can you expand on this idea? How has it resonated with the people you work with?

Jackie: That touches upon an issue that I have found interesting in representing AVSI here in the US, which has been the use of language and terms. We haven't been shy to use words that are dear to us. This includes words like protagonist, belonging, friendship, accompaniment. Even “the person” has been important because in a lot of the jargon out there, you don't talk about persons, you talk about individuals. There's a de-personification of a lot of our words in the non-profit sector. We use words that are rooted in our experience of CL, but we need to take care to make sure they're understood. We have found that the word ‘protagonist’ resonates with people. People really do understand and appreciate the fact that the objective of our programs isn't just to get people from point A to point B, but to help people discover the meaning of their life and the ability to shape their future in a practical way. That is what we mean by protagonist, and we always talk about the protagonist within a family and linked to a community.

Ezio: The emphasis on individual independence is inhuman. It’s not the real quality of human nature and it's not Christian. The word “protagonist” and the emphasis on belonging in a community is not just an interesting tool, it is an articulation of human nature.

How has the wider NGO world and funding bodies responded to this way of speaking about people?

Jackie: We have found that people at USAID and other peer organizations understand what we are saying. One example of an important moment for me and for all of us, was the first funding we got from USAID. The umbrella of this funding was called “Orphans and Vulnerable Children Funding” referring to the children left behind due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic which was ravaging Africa at the time. Our colleagues were looking at that name – “orphans” and “vulnerable children” – understanding the negativity of those terms, and realizing that they didn’t reflect their experience with the children in front of them, which was that those children were precious, and they were the promise of the future. To simply call them “orphans and vulnerable children” rubbed us the wrong way. We decided to change the name, but since the name was always going to be the acronym OVC on our official things, we decided to refer to the project as “Our Valuable Children.” This name emphasized the collective responsibility that we all have for each other and underscored the inherent value of those children. People here at USAID thought that was genius. They were saying, “Why didn't we think about that?” In experiences like these, we've learned that we shouldn't be afraid to use the words that we think best communicate what we're all about, even if sometimes it's cumbersome or takes a little longer to communicate what we want to say.

Can you tell us more about the “graduating to resilience” project?

Jackie: The Graduating to Resilience project, also funded by USAID, has its origins in the OVC work. We began working with children in very vulnerable communities that were heavily affected by HIV, but because we have a broader vision, we began working with families and the wider community. We needed to help parents educate their kids, but also provide for their kids economically. This made us move towards helping families with businesses and jobs that would provide for their children while also allowing them to do the parenting. At a certain point we realized that our mentality had to change because the cycle of project support can very easily generate dependence instead of helping them to become protagonists. We began to say, “Because we believe in you, we expect that after three years you should be in a different place and ready to take care of your family.” This is why we started talking about “graduation”: a point in which someone graduates out of the program and gives someone else the chance to participate. We are still there for the person, but it requires a shift in their (and our) mentality towards the support we provide. It worked very well and we could see that people were proud and motivated to graduate, which made us understand that the idea of graduating from a program was a really powerful tool for supporting protagonists rather than mere beneficiaries. So we wrote this up as a proposal, and to our great surprise and delight USAID funded it. We gave it the name “Graduating to Resilience.”

What sets your approach apart?

Jackie: I think we work with humility because we're convinced that we're not the savior of anyone. We don't have all the answers. We're convinced that we have a role to play, but so do others – especially the people who are in the communities we serve. When you approach these big needs with humility, you're already more open. You're more open to learning, and you're less interested in protecting your brand or reputation.

Ezio: We don't look at the “certificate of belonging” for those that work with us — if they are radical, non-radical, conservative, whatever. We don't do a litmus test. We ask from everyone, in addition to their technical capabilities, the honesty and availability to involve all of their humanity in our method and way of working.

Recently, at a Senate hearing, USAID administrator Samantha Power pointed to AVSI’s “Graduating to Resilience” program in Uganda as an exemplary model for alleviating poverty. What were your takeaways from such a major public moment?

Jackie: It was definitely a happy moment for us, and pretty amazing that the work of AVSI, the “little” organization born from the initiative of CL friends and supported by thousands of small gestures of solidarity, could be brought before the U.S. Senate as an example to follow. It was the result of years of hard work, paying attention to reality and above all to human experience, and not being afraid to invite others to verify the results of our work along the way. The high level of research and analytical tools applied to our work give the rest of the world confidence in the change that we see in people and communities. But it also reflects a bit of a tension regarding the growth that we've been through as an organization for the past 10 or 15 years. The tension is becoming an invitation to translate what we’ve done into new languages and new places. I think our history is showing us that it is possible to live that tension while still remaining faithful to the origin and allowing what was present at the beginning to take root and to grow. It's going to look different than it did at the beginning. Right now we are seeing that it is bearing fruit, and the fruit is going to look different than the seed.

Ezio: We have a different criterion to measure the success of the work of our organization. The organization itself and each one of us would like to be authentic to our identity. The challenge is not for the “organization”. Rather, it is a challenge for every one of us — because something is born not from the organization, but from the people in the organization. An organization is good when it reflects the path of each person. Like the movement, which is always our own personal work. We learn from what we do, not from inside the boardroom.