Missione Possibile Svizzera was founded as a result of a humanitarian and missionary trip to Cambodia and Laos I made in February 2008. The idea of the trip had come to me almost a year earlier, after a meeting with Gerry Testori during a presentation of Missione Possibile Onlus Italia. His words and the videos presenting their projects had had a great impact on me. After several months I decided to join them on the new trip they organized.
At first the experience was really rewarding, as I witnessed the humanitarian work which had been done. But after some days it became much harder and psychologically demanding. In certain areas there were hundreds of people living among mountains of garbage in extremely poor hygienic conditions. Children were actually living and eating amidst the rubbish among sickening fumes and smells, surrounded by young adults already looking like old men. The residents seemed accustomed and resigned to the situation, subjected to a culture that doesn’t allow them to react because they are born surrounded by “nothing”. Women are not respected, living in a country were prostitution – even child prostitution – is widespread and diseases such as AIDS destroy entire families.
I thought nothing could be worse than that, but I was wrong. When we reached the northern highlands of Laos we discovered even more chilling situations, with entire villages living in extremely poor sanitary conditions, at such a level that even the medical staff accompanying us began to weep, helpless in front of so much destitution. I remember a woman laying in my arms her little baby child, blind, her skin scarred by disease, asking me if I could do something. I just stood there helpless, unable to do anything… On the previous days in Cambodia we had been able to bring some help, food and clothes, but in Laos we had very few resources left. The situation was catastrophic, harrowing. It is impossible to perceive the real and unbelievable pain of these people from the comfort of our homes. What we were able to bring was just a drop, but we must remember that even that tiny drop helped someone, concretely and directly.
Back in Ticino, Switzerland, I shared my experiences with some friends. We committed ourselves, as a team, to try to ease as much as possible the sufferings of those populations. So we founded Missione Possibile Svizzera, concentrating our efforts on just a few concrete and sustainable projects. We focuse mainly on health, with the mobile clinic project in Cambodia, and on education, supporting the Takeo School in the same country. We also organize shipments of medicines to other places such as Haiti, Laos, Myanmar.
Tough independent, we work in close collaboration with Missione Possibile Italia Onlus, an Italian association operating since 2003. Ours is a strategic partnership which aims at the optimization of the projects’ management, thus allowing considerable savings in financial and human resources.
We realize the impossibility of helping everybody, but everyone can lend a hand, just for a few days, just for a few ours, to those in need. Our wish is to provide not just words, but real, factual help.
This is our message: we want to give hope and a vision to people much mess fortunate than us. And we need you all to spread this message of solidarity.
Vice-Chair
Stefano Baiesi