Entrevista Eleonora – UPP

Resumen

UPP is a Italian non-governmental organization established in 1991. The mission to Iraq is UPP’s oldest one, since it started during the first Gulf War at the beginning of the 1900s. The first name of the organization was, indeed, “Un Ponte per Baghdad” (A Bridge to Baghdad). We were actually one of the first international organization that come here. Since then up to now, we kept on working on support the people, standing by civil society and defending all the minorities that enrich the diversity of the country’s population. Then, in the last, more or less, six years, we focused our programs mainly on humanitarian rights. This change of focus came after the worsening of the humanitarian situation caused by the unrests happened in the region starting from 2011. At the beginning we worked mainly with Syrian refugees arriving as a consequence of the Syrian upraise. Then, we had to cope with the great amount of Internal Displaces Peoples (IDPs) from Iraq caused by the emergence of ISIS. Generally speaking, our mission is the one to implement humanitarian aid programs to support the most vulnerable within the population and protect minorities. Along with it, we also put effort in peacekeeping activities.