Refugees

Policy Officer in Charge of Development Cooperation and Decentralized Cooperation at the European Committee of the Regions

MAPPA works on the interaction between planning for the sustainable development of cities and regions and the preservation of cultural and environmental heritage.

The firm and its partners contribute with experience in more than 250 cities and municipalities across Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Uruguay and the United States.

MAPPA's practice has focused on urban, regional and environmental planning, climate change, economic and infrastructure development, urban design and management, heritage districts and sites preservations and built environment assessments.

Graduated in Cultural Anthropology and Master in International Cooperation and Development . In the last 15 years of work I have gained experience in the field of integration of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants and in global citizenship education, especially in formal education. I work at CISP since 2002 and since 2006 I am the head of programs in Italy and in the European Union.

I am a human rights practitioner with more than twenty years of experience in post conflict countries as well as in countries in the EU accession process.
My main areas of expertise are post conflict housing, land and property rights, displaced persons, refugees and migrants’ rights, rule of law, legal aid, transitional justice. I have gathered also a significant experience in monitoring and supervising elections both at the field and central level. 
Thanks to these experiences, I developed a series of skills like human rights monitoring and reporting, providing expert advice to governmental bodies, drafting legal documents, advocacy with national authorities, designing projects and tools  for the purpose of protecting human rights.
I have worked extensively in the Western Balkans, mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and  Kosovo and for shorter period of times in Georgia, Ukraine, Rwanda, Jordan and Colombia. Besides these countries, I have recently worked in the United Kingdom as Deputy Director at Europe Regional Office of Amnesty International. 

I worked for international organisations, international NGOs, as well as private companies.  The roles that I covered were characterized by an increasing level of responsibilities and complexity. For these reasons, I moved from human rights officer to legal advisor, to team leader and in my latest assignment I was deputy director for Europe for Amnesty International. During these years I was also happy to work as a free-lance consultant and whenever possible offer my pro bono support to NGOs and other civil society organisations.  

In my work, but also in my life, I am committed to a continuous personal growth, seeking new challenges I am always eager to expand my knowledge and learn new things. For these reasons, I value direct experience, gathered at the field level, which delivers in depth knowledge of the current situation. Experience needs to be combined with the application of existing standards and principles. At the same time humor, kindness, tolerance and a good amount of social skills are also a key features of my professional approach and of my personality.

I have twenty plus (20+) years of experience in development, gender and humanitarian contexts. I am a gender, diversity and protection specialist. I hold a master’s degree in Human Rights, in Public Health, and in Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping. My areas of expertise include M&E in humanitarian settings, capacity building and policy-oriented research on gender, protection and diversity.. I have worked for the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for several Civil Society Organizations, such as Save the Children, for universities, for UN agencies, such as UNICEF and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for UN Women, for WHO, for UNFPA, for bilateral agencies (Expertise France, AECID, GIZ, SIDA), for the European Commission (both, DG ECHO and DG INTPA) and for think tanks. Flexible and patiente. I am a team worker, but I am also used to work with autonomy. I love multicultural enviroments and I am highly committed to my job!