Good Practices / AgriCultura – Coltivare Diritti

AgriCultura – Coltivare Diritti

Housing • Employment • Discrimination • Health

Organization that is implementing

Nero e non solo! Onlus

Country

Italy 

Project
Dates

2021

In progress

Level of
Implementation

Regional

Target Group

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

More
information

www.neroenonsolo.it

SDG’s

Project Overview

The association was founded in 1991 after the death of Jerry Essan Masslo by a group of activists who later merged with ARCI. The initial aim was to protect and support the first foreign workers, particularly those ones working on the collection of tomato and strawberries. At this time, the main activity of the association was to face racism combined with the dissemination of cultural events. After an arson attack in 1998, that destroyed the first headquarters, the association’s activities expand, including now the support of migrant families (e.g.: provide Italian Courses, bureaucratic support through mediation with public administration and offices).

In 2009, the association started a new project that aimed to promote a dignitary work and stop work exploitation by raising awareness to the precarious conditions that the field workers were facing and offering them new job opportunities.

The association turn part of the Coltivare Diritti network: a set of assistance and information desk , and an integrated system of services on various municipalities the Campania region with the aim of offering assistance in accessing welfare, work, and access to the health system, as well as to promote the integration of foreign citizens in the area.

Main Activities

Outreaching:

  • Mobile units engaged in the strategic points of formal and informal meeting to guarantee a first contact;
  • Taking charge and orientation to social, health and housing services.

Protection of Rights:

  • Social secretariat and support for public services.
  • Legal advice for victims of labor exploitation.
  • Citizenship paths: workshops and information meetings on rights and access to services.

Work and self-entrepreneurship:

  • Job orientation and promotion of employability.
  • Workshops for the strengthening of transversal and professional skills.
  • Workshops and visits to companies to facilitate meetings between workers and employers.
  • Business start-up training and consultancy.

Health:

  • Itinerant health units to promote and favor health protection.
  • Socio-health orientation with particular attention to women’s health.
  • Local health prevention and protection meetings.
  • Administration of anti-Covid tests and home visits for the most vulnerable subjects.

Home:

  • Brokerage and guidance for the search for a home, in order to guarantee the right to housing;
  • Provision of housing support vouchers;
  • Guest quarters for housing emergencies.

Transport:

  • Strengthening of local transport lines for work
  • On-call mobility services;
  • Transport vouchers;
  • Shared mobility services.

System mediation:

  • An on-call mediation agency that can ensure cultural and linguistic facilitation interventions;
  • Intercultural consultancy, support and updating of public service operators;
  • City assemblies involving natives and citizens of other countries.

More Information

How was the Project born?

The Cultivating Rights project was created to prevent and combat the exploitation in agriculture of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants with a view to multidisciplinary and multistakeholder integration, able to accommodate the complexity of the recipients’ requests and provide a complete response in the areas of the municipalities of Caserta and Naples identified as most vulnerable. The initiative, financed with AMIF and PON funds, was born from a co-planning work with the Campania Region of the interventions promoted by the national programs Su.Pr.Eme and P.I.U. Su.Pr. Eme.

Elements that facilitated the implementation

Support from institutions in the design, provision of spaces and integration of services.

 

Challenges in the implementation

1. Coordinate activities at multiple levels

Through supervision and updating meetings on the progress of the activities we are able to implement the most difficult activities and to reorganize objectives and strategies.

2. Make the beneficiaries aware of exploitative situations in which they find themselves

Awareness campaigns on the subject.

3. Finding alternative solutions to guarantee housing and economic income

Activation of internships, job grants, housing guidance desk.

4. Support and launch of self-employment

Training activities on the job and self-employment.

Impact on refugees or local community lives?

The project allows beneficiaries to improve their working and living conditions, by raising awareness of their work, home, and health rights. Through training activities, they can learn and improve skills that can be applied in future workplaces, and manage to give up and stay away from exploitation situations. Furthermore, contacts with citizens and institutions allow them to integrate into local and community life and improve their levels of self-efficacy.

Is this project/program replicable and/or scalable?

This practice can be easily replicated in different contexts and with modifiable times and methods according to the needs of the beneficiaries, the local work conditions, the real estate market, the availability and support provided by the institutions.