Social Inclusion
We promote social inclusion as a key value in creating value for communities
The marginalisation of the most vulnerable is damaging for the entire community from all perspectives. Everyone can actually make their own contribution to developing the local area and the community in which they live, but they need support and a solid and inclusive social network.
On the strength of this belief, we support many projects targeted at social inclusion in different areas.
Mediobanca is a participant in the UNHCR programme for the protection of female refugees and asylum seekers at risk of gender based violence in Italy
For the second year Mediobanca has decided to support the integrated protection programme for female refugees and asylum seekers who are survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) which in Italy is run by the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissoner for Refugees. The programme offers female refugees who are survivors of GBV and victims of the slave trade to find shelter, understanding, support and assistance in their progress to physical and psychological healing and their reintegration into the community, helping them take back control of the decisions affecting their lives.
Sport is a powerful way of bringing people together socially and through our projects we support its strong values: loyalty, sense of belonging, determination and team work.
INSIEME is a long term project created in collaboration with CUS Milano Rugby and the Municipality of Milan to promote sport for young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and at risk of exclusion in several outer-Milan districts. The initiative, launched in 2017 by the Quarto Oggiaro zone, was subsequently extended to via Padova and Baggio. In addition to the teaching of the sporting disciplines of rugby, volleyball and track and field, we also provide a psychologist who offers support for the most difficult family situations. Group volunteers also took part activities in the field. The Group has also financed the refurbishment of the most run down sports facilities in the areas involved. The Group has renewed its support for a third three-year period (2023-26).
This year too we decided to bring the values of sport to the challenging environment of prison, running our multi-sport camp at the “Cesare Beccaria” young offenders’ institution. The camp offers the detainees an opportunity to take part in a variety of sports for a week, in a competitive environment which instills respect for the rules and fair play. We also carried out maintenance and reports to the sports facilities as part of our involvement. LIn 2024, the camp was run for the eighth year at end-June, once again with the direct involvement of some of our own staff participating in the activities and assisting the Camp trainers in the course of the week. The camp was also run outside Milan for the first time, at the Nisida Institute for Juvenile Offenders in Naples early in July 2024.
We promote and support projects that address difficult family and personal situations, by attempting to reintegrate young people at risk of truancy and social exclusion into the community and job networks.
The Mediobanca Group is renewing its commitment to social inclusion by helping young offenders to reintegrate into society by supporting a nationwide project called Orizzonti, Horizons, in conjunction with Fondazione Francesca Rava – NPH Italia ETS.
“Horizons” has been developed as part of a wider project called “Palla al Centro” (“Back to the centre circle”) already launched by the Fondazione Francesca Rava in Lombardy, covering the 17 institutions for juvenile offenders in the region, after the foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Italian Department of Juvenile and Community Justice in 2024.
The “Horizons” project’s mission is to offer the young inmates, who are aged between 14 and 25, at the criminal institutions for juvenile offenders at Milan, Pontremoli, Rome and Naples, Bari and Catanzaro, a concrete opportunity for a new start and reintegration into society and the workplace through direct involvement in manual and training activities alongside Mediobanca Group staff volunteers, the foundations’ own educators, and professional figures specializing in the various disciplines.
Different activities will be offered at the six institutions participating in the project: from painting the walls of the institutions to theoretical and practical gardening courses, and workshops on cutting and decorating, to acquire new skills but also to learn new processions by developing their appreciation for beauty; the young people involved will also be given an opportunity to create their own graffiti wall mural, using the healing properties of art to help them come to terms with the reality of their prison environment.
Accademia del legno is one of the Mediobanca Group’s landmark projects in the area of social inclusion.
Set up in 2018 from a joint venture between the Bank and the Cometa Contrada degli Artigiani social co-operative, Accademia del legno is a social artisanal enterprise, intended to offer employment opportunities to young people with social, economic and personal difficulties, with the objective of becoming a sustainable and self-standing business, providing products and services of excellence in the field of furniture and interior design.
Now in its sixth year, the Academy of Woodworking is a stable business, which has achieved impressive results in terms of training and employment:
More than 330 students have attended the “Oliver Twist” school run by Cometa and received training in the woodworking sector;
- 30 apprenticeships provided to students in the woodworking, decoration and furnishing sector;
- 10 new tutors recruited full-time;
- 6 young people employed full-time.
TESSIAMO IL FUTURO. Innovation and sustainability in the textile industry, is the name of the new project launched in 2024 by the Mediobanca Group in conjunction with the “Oliver Twist” school run by Cometa, which aims to create value for communities, in particular for young people and especially those in vulnerable situations.
The objective of this venture is to provide training for young people to enable them to find work in the textile production chain, from designing to actually making the fabrics, to application and product packaging, with a particular focus on digital skills and environmental sustainability, both of which pose crucial challenges for the sector’s development.
In using the school-enterprise model, the objective is to build and develop the specific capabilities required in order to help young people approach the workplace, offering tailor-made courses to help tackle the phenomenon of early leaving school, and encouraging them to complete their training successfully and so make themselves employable.
This year too Mediobanca and Fondazione Mission Bambini are consolidating the partnership l launched in 2020 with the aim of guaranteeing quality education services for children living in some of the most vulnerable areas. By supporting Mission Bambini’s “Shine” project, Mediobanca will provide free access for fifteen children to kindergartens or infant schools in the cities of Bari, Catania, Milan, Naples and Rome.
The corporate volunteering activities provided by Mediobanca Group staff will also help develop the inside and outside areas of the educational facilities identified as part of the project, creating spaces that are welcoming and filled with light, where children can play and take part in their educational activities and workshops.
2023
A new project has been launched to help 400 children and young people of elementary and middle school age at two comprehensive institutions located in socially vulnerable areas on the outskirts of Milan and Rome.
The initiative entails redevelopment of the school premises, with the help of the corporate social volunteering scheme promoted by the Mediobanca Group, in which staff members have taken part in repainting the inside areas, including classrooms and corridors, and launch of a counselling service to provide psychological and emotional support for the schoolchildren in a dedicated area (“Spazio Mission Bambini”) to be opened in a school in Rome.
The initiative has also involved re-greening an area of the metropolitan city of Milan, by planting 500 new trees and plants, again with the support of a group of volunteers from the Mediobanca Group.
Read the press release here
2022
In 2022, the partnership involved redeveloping the outside areas of schools from an educational perspective by creating a sensory garden, developed as part of a corporate volunteering project promoted by the Mediobanca Group, providing psychological and emotional support for the children through the creation of a dedicated area (Spazio Mission Bambini), and enhancing the schools’ computer facilities.
Over a thousand new trees were planted on the outskirts of Milan with the participation of Group volunteers.
2021
In 2021, again in partnership with Mission Bambini, we supported a project entitled “Look to the Future”, which involved: enhancing schools’ provision in terms of computer equipment, improving the state of repair of school buildings through corporate volunteering activity, and education for sustainable development, with a thousand new trees planted with the help of Group volunteers.
In the United Kingdom, the Mediobanca London branch office has launched a partnership with the local charity St Mungo’s, including volunteering activities by some of the branch colleagues, to help the homeless find secure housing.
Health is an inalienable human right. Assistance for the sick is not only important from a medical point of view, but from a psychological perspective. For this reason, we support numerous charities active in the Milan area in the health and socio-assistance domain.
Mediobanca Premier has also chosen to support the Italian league against cancer for the Milan-MonzaBrianza area, by strengthening the Childcare programme for children and young people with cancer and their families, with the objective of providing them with care and assistance throughout the entire period in which they are in hospital.
Mediobanca has confirmed its support for VIDAS, a charity provides complete healthcare and assistance free of charge to patients suffering with terminal cancer, both at home and in the Casa Vidas hospice in Milan. We pledged our contribution to the association the Casa Sollievo Bimbi which provides care and relief for children and young people at advanced stages of incurable diseases and their families.
RAM Active Investments, through the RAM Active Philanthropy Foundation, backs this organisation based in South Africa which supports initiatives for the care of orphans as a result of their parents dying from AIDS.
RAM Active Investments supports this association which seeks to improve the health of the rural populations in India, Cambodia and Madagascar by offering them sustainable and independent access to safe drinking water.
RAM Active Investments supports this Swiss organisation which, as part of a “specialised care” programme, welcomes children with diseases and malformations who require specialised operations and advanced technologies not available in their country of origin.