Meet Intersos, the Italian Nonprofit Helping Migrant Children
Migrant children were especially vulnerable at the outset of the pandemic in hard-hit countries like Italy. Enter Intersos, a Rome-based nonprofit founded in 1992, which came to their rescue by adapting the mobile health units it sends to war-torn countries like Yemen and Lebanon to provide lifesaving aid to underserved communities in Italy. When COVID-19 began spreading throughout Europe, Intersos focused its efforts in Rome, Foggia, and Crotone. Its local outreach began in 2011, with a medical center in Rome that provided services to unaccompanied migrant children, who had limited resources to find shelter and basic care. According to Intersos: "From the start of the [COVID-19] intervention to today, the mobile teams have intercepted and supported 9,500 people through medical visits and have involved 9,947 people in health education sessions."
The organization was originally founded to send aid to Somalia, helping people recover from and cope with civil war and famine. Its mission has expanded since then and today its humanitarian workers are stationed in 19 countries where they have assisted 5 million people and allocated more than $11.5 million to humanitarian projects.
This story appears in the Summer 2021 issue of Town & Country.
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