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CEFA - The European Committee for Education and Agriculture (Comitato Europeo per la Formazione e l'Agricultura) was founded on September 23, 1972 in Bologna by Giovanni Bersani, Father Angelo Cavagna, and a group of agricultural cooperatives linked with the Christian Workers Movement (Movimento Cristiano Lavoratori).
The first international convention promoted by CEFA under the guidance of Giovanni Bersani gave significant contributions to the intellectual and political path that would bring to fruition the agreement among the European Community and the countries of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, known as the Lomé Convention.
As a member of the Federation of Christian Organizations for International Volunteer Service (FOCSIV) and the Association of Italian NGOs, CEFA was officially recognized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs through the eligibility decree of May 1974 and by the European Union.
After an initial project in education, health and social services sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, CEFA began its own project in the province of Iringa, Tanzania, following the recommendation of the Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere. Here, the first project of rural integrated development was born. Today, more and more initiatives have enriched this project to form a vast regional program that is self-sufficient in its diverse components.
In those same years, CEFA made the decision to concentrate its initiatives mainly in the region of East Africa, particularly Tanzania and Kenya, establishing an articulated typology of rural integrated programs, meant to combine operations of direct production with social development projects, encouraging responsible participation of the local community.
At the end of the Eighties, the growth of international contacts led to the beginning of a new cooperation experience in Chile. Afterwards, the presence in Latin America continued with a project of agrarian reform with an indigenous population in northern Argentina, and is still active today in other Latin American countries.
Since 1992, with the acceleration of tragic events in Africa and the Balkans during a period of dramatic historical changes, CEFA has been dealing with new situations, intervening for rehabilitation in Somalia, Albania, and the territories of ex-Yugoslavia (namely Bosnia and Herzegovina). Also in emergency situations, CEFA has always sought to provide a long-term intervention in order to create the basis for a following commitment in development projects that can be continued long-term by local people.
In 1998, thanks to particular attention given to the Mediterranean area and immigration problems, CEFA opened its first agrarian zootechnical and social program in Morocco in the region of the most prominent Maroccan emigration to Italy, the province of Settat. CEFA is still there today with rural development programs of high social value.
In the same year, following a particular attention paid to the problems of childhood, CEFA began to participate in Child Sponsorship, SAD, in some areas in which integrated development programs were already present. These initiatives are integrated with the general action carried out by CEFA on site and they find in CEFA's overall program suitable conditions to set up a path of synergy and sustainability for specific actions for children.
At the beginning of the new millennium, with the aim of qualifying its presence in Latin America in the field of rural cooperation with indigenous populations, the first projects with the Mayan communities of Quichè in Guatemala were initiated. Soon it became a widespead program, still active regarding agricultural production, commercialization, organization, and female craftsmanship as well as support of the organization of the public land register, a fundamental instrument to concretely garauntee the right to land and its respect.
Since its origins, CEFA has regarded the commitment to cultural promotion a precise duty, in spreading awareness and educating about development in Italy and the rest of Europe. Such a commitment is articulated in various ways (exhibitions, seminars, lectures, publications, events), in conjunction with specific actions targeted at schools and universities.
Drawing on its origins and its history inspired by the Christian concept of life and man, CEFA today confirms the will to encourage experiences of international cooperation meant to reinforce the dignity and protagonism of everyone involved, promoting actions of responsible and lasting solidarity. These are values in which CEFA has always maintained faith with constancy and consistency and that in no way estrange it from collaboration with people and associations of different inspiration, provided that they share the fundamental assumption that respect for the dignity and freedom of every human being is inescapable.
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