The “NGO in action”
We are an independent Italian NGO founded in Milan by Father Vincenzo Barbieri on April 15, 1965.
Fifty years on, we still believe in our strategy.
On 15 April 1965 Father Barbieri founded COOPI. This was to be the start of a journey spanning fifty years during which COOPI and Italian international cooperation, in all their various aspects, have expanded and transformed themselves. Yet COOPI’s story begins before 1965 – in 1961, in fact, when Vincenzo Barbieri, a young Jesuit priest, was sent by his superiors to study at the Faculty of Theology in Lyon, France, with a view to going to Chad as a missionary. Barbieri found the cultural environment in France to be much more lively and open than the one he experienced in provincial Italy in the years prior to the Second Vatican Council. In Lyon he came into contact with international secular movements which had been engaged in voluntary work in developing countries for many years. In 1962, Barbieri turned down the opportunity to depart as a missionary himself and returned to Milan with the intention of training volunteers to depart for countries in the Global South. he introduced the secular component into missionary activities.
Organization
A PROFESSIONAL TEAM.
COOPI’s organizational structure consists of 7 Offices, all of which report to the Director: Control, Monitoring and Audit; Human Resources; External Relations; Program Quality and Innovation; Administration and Finance; Philantrophy and Private Partnership; Individual Donors Fundraising. These are complemented by several functions, such as the General Secretary, the Institutional Communication Office and the Area Managers of seven geographical areas. Lastly, COOPI has long created a Regional Coordination for Latin America and the Caribbean.
