There is one aspect that AMU has always considered essential in its activity in the world of cooperation, since the beginning. And it is to pay specific attention to the effects that its actions determine in the lives of the people involved in the projects of AMU itself. This attention, always implicit, today, with the new document approved by the Board of Directors – “ AMU Guidelines for the generation and evaluation of social impact” – wants to become more explicit.
AMU – The change of perspective
Since it was founded (thirty-six years ago), AMU has introduced a change of perspective in the world of cooperation, focusing for the first time on the generation of relationships of communion with the individual protagonists of the projects. This is its strength, a characteristic of its DNA. Which today is made official in the drafting of the guidelines that act as a compass for the action of AMU and its local counterparts in the world.
AMU – The new guidelines
Guidelines that can be summarized as follows: to develop one’s life, it is not only necessary to receive something, but to free the potential that each of us has inside, to free abilities and talents. Not only for oneself, but also to give it as a gift to others, because it is in that experience of giving that the integral development of the person is played out. The role chosen by AMU is to accompany people and communities who find themselves in conditions of exclusion and vulnerability towards the liberation of their abilities, whether personal or collective. In this regard, there is a fundamental work that AMU and its local partners carry out, with different methodologies: the identification of the needs and dreams of change of the protagonists of the projects.
AMU – Social Impact Assessment
And this is where social impact assessment comes into play: what will be the effects of the projects on the lives of the beneficiaries? and also – in some cases – what will be, in the long term, the impact of the projects themselves on the territories and communities to which the beneficiaries belong? An impact that AMU measures and evaluates in many dimensions, and with specific attention to one aspect: how much, following a project, the relationships of trust, esteem, friendship, collaboration, mutual giving and – in a word – communion, between the people involved have been strengthened. In the coming months, the document containing the guidelines will be translated and published in five languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. And public events will be organized to present it, but above all to publicize this – unique – way of working of AMU.
