The Middle East is the most active region of Armadilla. In Syria, it has implemented projects, since 2004, in collaboration with the local partner, the Zahret Al Madan (Zam) association in Damascus. With this Association was built in 2010, a new building (over 1000 square meters) with the aim of strengthening and improve technical skills and assistance for disabled children in the municipality of Hajar Al Aswad and improve the rehabilitation skills of local medical and paramedical staff.
Since 2011, Syria has lived a dramatic situation of war. A conflict that has caused over 500 thousand deaths and over 12 million displaced people. Thanks to the support of the Waldensian Church, the United Nations Agencies and the Italian cooperation, the most vulnerable families receive monthly food kits that guarantee them the possibility is to safeguard their lives. The project to support local communities has allowed them to give continuity to the actions of psychosocial support to the families and in particular to the children who have suffered in a traumatic way the drama of abandonment of their homes and the sad situation of a widespread war.
In Lebanon Armadilla has started a collaboration in the framework of the United Nations (UNDP) to promote a territorial cooperation program with Italian entities. They are being identified as territorial cooperation projects in collaboration with the Regions of Lazio, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany. Lebanon is a country of 4.5 million inhabitants that has seen in the last three years a human tide of over 1 million refugees from Syria. A country that had already hosted in the history of the last 60 years hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who are currently about 450 thousand. Local communities, often already characterized by conditions of poverty and scarcity of basic services, they are not able to support the weight of the refugee population that is often as numerous as the local population. The answers that the international organizations try to give are insufficient to cope with the emergence and severity of the situation.
Mozambique, Tunisia, Libya, Nicaragua, El Salvador are countries where Armadilla has achieved cooperation projects and where new possibilities for intervention are being studied. Favoring the methodology of territorial partnerships Armadilla operates in Italy to identify entities available to cooperate and make know-how necessary for the implementation of cooperation processes. Collaborate with Italian schools and universities for training in global citizenship.