The work of AVASA builds on other initiatives that precede the beginning of our activity. In particular, the work of the American foundation IIMAS - The International Institute for Mesopotamian Area Studies has seen many of the same people involved in the achievement of the same goals for which also AVASA is committed. It is therefore necessary that this website also refers to the "prehistory" of AVASA, in order to better understand its nature and its functioning.
The intrinsic essence of these initiatives is partly based on a shared interest for Syria. The activities that began with archeology but has gone beyond (and it is precisely this "beyond" that represents AVASA's specific domain) partially converge around this country.
"No longer foreigners".
We, archaeologists arrived from abroad, have never been "foreigners" for our Syrian guests.
Today, we want the Syrians who turn to us from the abyss of war to have the same feeling. They are teaching to all of us the dignity of a confrontation with the abyss, a confrontation that accepts the entire reality precisely when efforts are made to overcome it. Syria emerges for us as a school of life.
"No longer foreigners".
The commitment that AVASA has undertaken is to allow us to learn from those whom we try to help.
A few very extraordinary activities are currently carried out, which the AVASA website documents, beginning with the previous purely archaeological activities of IIMAS. These are activities that we develop with a total consonance with Syrian friends in Syria, who are no longer foreigners, as in fact they have never made us feel "foreigners".
"No longer foreigners".
Spurred by the project "Archeology for values", made possible thanks to the Cariplo Foundation, the young people of Ossola and Lombardy are discovering new ways of supporting each other, giving a new sense and value to the concept of that new word, "social", that nowadays dominates our world.
The phrase "no longer foreigners" acquires, thus, a deeper meaning.
The intrinsic essence of these initiatives is partly based on a shared interest for Syria. The activities that began with archeology but has gone beyond (and it is precisely this "beyond" that represents AVASA's specific domain) partially converge around this country.
"No longer foreigners".
We, archaeologists arrived from abroad, have never been "foreigners" for our Syrian guests.
Today, we want the Syrians who turn to us from the abyss of war to have the same feeling. They are teaching to all of us the dignity of a confrontation with the abyss, a confrontation that accepts the entire reality precisely when efforts are made to overcome it. Syria emerges for us as a school of life.
"No longer foreigners".
The commitment that AVASA has undertaken is to allow us to learn from those whom we try to help.
A few very extraordinary activities are currently carried out, which the AVASA website documents, beginning with the previous purely archaeological activities of IIMAS. These are activities that we develop with a total consonance with Syrian friends in Syria, who are no longer foreigners, as in fact they have never made us feel "foreigners".
"No longer foreigners".
Spurred by the project "Archeology for values", made possible thanks to the Cariplo Foundation, the young people of Ossola and Lombardy are discovering new ways of supporting each other, giving a new sense and value to the concept of that new word, "social", that nowadays dominates our world.
The phrase "no longer foreigners" acquires, thus, a deeper meaning.