OUR STORY

4change was founded in April 2009 out of the experience, curiosity and enthusiasm of Gabriella Arcadu and Barbara Carrai. 4change is the result of an in-depth reflection based on over 20 years of experience in transitional countries. It  has been designed to be a flexible tool to offer targeted services that couple strong technical competences with the capacity to fruitfully engage and interact with individuals and groups.  

Barbara started her professional experience in South Africa in 1992 during the referendum that opened the way to the end of apartheid. She was then appointed to the UN Mission in Mozambique (ONUMOZ) to monitor the first post war elections. In the same period, Gabriella was working with an Italian NGO in Ethiopia for a social development project targeting disadvantaged women. In 1994 she started working in Angola following the disarmament and reintegration of UNITA guerrilla soldiers within the UN Mission UNAVEM III.

Serving in peacekeeping missions in the early 1990s, Barbara witnessed the lack of specific preparation of civilians deployed in various capacities. Upon her return from Africa, she proposed to the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Italy) to host a pilot training course to enhance civilians’ competences to serve effectively in the field. The initiative was a success. In 1995, the International Training Programme for Conflict Management (ITPCM) of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna was founded and Barbara was appointed as Executive Director, a position she held until 2009.

Gabriella returned from Africa in 1996 and she first entered into contact with Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna through a training course she attended. Soon after, she worked at the International Centre for Health Management of the Isitituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome following programmes and research activities related to Human Rights in complex emergencies. She was then recruited by the World Health Organization to design a tool to train health professionals working in conflict areas and assisted in the start-up of the Health as a Bridge for Peace Programme in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

In 2000 she joined the ITPCM and -together with Barbara- greatly contributed to its success. In the following ten years, the ITPCM became a worldwide renown centre that offered training and technical assistance in a variety of peace related subjects (e.g. humanitarian assistance, refugees and IDPs, elections, democratization, human rights, leadership) and for a number of organizations and institutions such as different United Nations agencies (UNHCR, OHCHR, WFP, DPKO), the European Commission, the OSCE and OSCE-ODIHR, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Universities, NGOs, the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission,  and African regional organizations (ECOWAS, EASBRICON).

During their work at the ITPCM Barbara and Gabriella never stopped carrying out missions in the field. Barbara was active in the electoral sector in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, Indonesia, Serbia and several other countries, witnessing the deep transformation the world was undergoing and the emergence of new trends and tools in international crisis response . Gabriella implemented projects and training activities in, among others, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Kosovo, Jordan, developing a firsthand experience of the changing international security framework and of the challenges international and national personnel were facing in their everyday work.

These experiences gave Barbara and Gabriella the opportunity to work with hundreds of people with the most diverse personal and professional backgrounds and in the most varied settings. This background encouraged them to develop a transformative approach to training, and particularly to Training of Trainers (ToT) considered as a key strategy to unleash competence and skills while guaranteeing a multiplier effect. Their transformative approach to training has been widely applied in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East with different audiences.

4change approach to training was condensed in a toolbox developed with UNITAR that is currently used all over the world and its impact is widely recognized.