CISS is an Italian non-profit NGO, founded in 1985 and active in the field of solidarity and international development cooperation; CISS is recognised from 1989 by the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and, since 1988 is working in contact with the European Commission. In consideration of this presence, in a European territory characterised by strong and specific development problems, CISS is working also at local level, particularly in Sicily where the headquarter of the organization is based; in this region the main target of the activities are young people with fewer opportunities and migrants (including migrant youtrhs and children). Thus, the three main intervention areas of the NGO are:

a) Projects and activities of solidarity and international cooperation;
b) Projects and activities of education, training and public awareness;
c) Projects and interventions of territorial socio-economic development, involving young people in particular students of schools, universities and migrants.

CISS has completed around 60 long term interventions, and over 220 shorter actions in: Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela; Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia; Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine; Congo RD, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mauritania, Rep. of Congo, Sudan; Albania, FYROM; Sri Lanka and Nigeria.

CISS has a long experience in the field of intercultural exchange and mobility, involving young people and audlts with non-formal learning methods. CISS actively promotes the exchange of best practices, with young people and adults, focusing on the use of alternative educational tools to promote youth leadership and activism in difficult situations. CISS organizes summer school to enable young people and youth workers or practitioners to share knowledge, experiences, best practices, tools of methodologies.

CISS is an accredited NGO, since 2000, at the Italian National Agency for Youth (2014-1-IT03-KA110-004318) as EVS coordinating, sending, hosting organisation of the E+ programme. CISS has a significant experience in the organization of youth exchanges and trainings as sending or hosting organization in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme.

CISS has conducted several training and educational projects targeting disadvantaged groups. CISS is currently coordinating an educational programme abroad, in Palestine, focused on the inclusive education for children and youths with special needs. Over the past year, CISS created a centre to support disabled children and their mothers in a marginalized area of Cuba, in Central America. In Palermo CISS has worked in several schools through the project “Non uno di meno, ma ognuno a suo modo”, funded by “Fondazione con il Sud”; one of the fields of intervention of the above-mentioned project was the intercultural and inclusive education for migrant students and students with special needs. In the Western Balkan, CISS completed in 2017 the project “Model human rights’ defenders at school” in FYROM; through this project CISS introduced experimental laboratories of human rights’ education in 8 secondary schools of the country. In Italy CISS started in April, 2017 a project directed to the social inclusion of unaccompanied minors hosted in reception centres in different areas of the Sicilian region (Palermo and Messina); this project is entitled “MAPNET” and will experiment new methods for the long term integrations of migrant minors in the hosting communities.

Website: http://www.cissong.org