an entire community alongside families in poverty • According to Welfare

Counter the poverty of families with minor children interrupting the generational transmission circuit through concrete supports to address the new fragilities born during the Covid-19 pandemic. This, in short, is the objective of the three-year project Visconti Heart, whose results were presented during a conference held on 10 April at the Mirasole Abbey, in Opera. The objectives and results of the program are briefly presented below, as well as some ideas that emerged from the discussion between the stakeholders. Although they refer to a specific project, we believe they can be useful for anyone who finds themselves facing similar challenges to combat poverty and social exclusion.

Visconti Heart, online welfare in Southern Milan

Promoted by the Community Foundation of Milan, Cuore Visconteo was created by a large partnership made up of 14 Third Sector Bodies – Mirasole Social Enterprise Project (leader), Acli Milan, “Danilo Fossati” Lombardy Food Bank Association, Milan Pharmaceutical Bank Association, Ciessevi Milan Association, Codes, Red Cross Southern Milan Area Committee, Adecco Foundation, Caritas Ambrosiana Foundation, Progetto Arca Foundation, the four social cooperatives Libera Compagnia di Arti & Mestieri Sociali, Marta, Pratica, Spazio Aperto Servizi – and since Common Of Rozzanoas leader of the Visconteo South Milan District Area which includes 11 municipalities.

The objective of the project was to support families with minor children in poverty, intervening in particular on the new situations of fragility that emerged due to the pandemic emergency, to interrupt the generational transmission cycle of poverty. At the center of the interventions is one team multidisciplinary of operators: educators, social workers, psychologists, counselora community nurse, job placement workers and a financial educator to address the different dimensions of poverty encountered.

These figures have worked together for intercept hidden poverty, accompanying more fragile families on a path of growth and resolution of economic, food and health emergencies, to guarantee socio-work inclusion paths for adults and educational opportunities for children and young people. Around the interventions in favor of families not only the professional project operators, but also many local organizations and active citizens who have implemented community initiatives and mutual aid dynamics.

The results of the program: some numbers

In the three-year period 2021-2024 Cuore Visconteo met thousands of families through various activities – such as the distribution of food aid, educational workshops and community initiatives – which concern a wide range of beneficiaries. Subsequently the program focused on approx 170 more fragile families to whom an accompanying path can be dedicated defined very precisely on the needs of the unit and on the objectives that emerged from the meeting and the common initiative of the families, operators and volunteers.

Below are some numbers that give an idea of ​​the work carried out and the impact it has had on the programme’s reference area.

The “Rich in the future” conference

“Rich in the future to talk about poverty“. This is the theme proposed by the conference. This is not an oxymoron, but the cornerstone of the method with which operators and communities addressed poverty within the Cuore Visconti program. Support for families starting from a more confident look towards the futurecapable of reawakening the desire to improve one’s condition, starting from one’s own abilities and desires, where one can set concrete goals and set out on a journey, never alone.

“We fall alone, but we get back up together” is one of the slogans that emerged during the conference last April 10th in the splendid setting of the Mirasole Abbey which was the organizational center of Cuore Visconteo for three years. Eighty public and private social operators they met to celebrate the work done in three intense years of the program, sharing activities, successes and areas for improvement and some emblematic stories where poverty gave rise to a more conscious resilience and a brighter confidence in being able to count on the other even in the darkest moments.

The conference also saw a large audience round table on the topic of “welfare online” in which, in addition to some operators from Cuore Visconteo (from the multidisciplinary team and the District Planning Office), also representatives of the Third Sector Forum of Southern Milan and of two programs with similar characteristics underway in other territories of the Metropolitan City of Milan: “Beyond the Perimeters” in Rhodense and “Recipe QuBì” in Municipality 8 of Milan.

Key messages for combating poverty in Southern Milan (and beyond)

Some important issues emerged from the round table useful reflections to direct the development of the welfare system in Southern Milan, with a careful eye on poverty and in particular on new poverty. We report them below:

• The importance of nourishing community places – the existing ones born within the program and the new ones that will be established in the coming months – that citizens can feel at home, where they can meet, participate in various activities, take initiative and find mutual support.
• Addressing the complexity of new poverty with an integrated perspectiveeffectively articulating interventions in different fields (housing emergencies, economic poverty, educational poverty, lack of work, family crises, mental health problems, etc.) making use of a network of subjects and a plurality of professionals who act as a concert.
• To force a community welfare capable of bringing together public measures and interventions with the professionalism of the private social sector and with the initiative of local associations and individual citizens. Create the conditions so that this plurality of actors can participate actively also at the level of territorial planning and governance using the shared administration tools envisaged by the Third Sector reform.
• A system of work that, to mobilize a wider range of contributions and experiences must invest, starting from public administration, resolutely in this approachallocating energy to broader governance processes, attracting and channeling various private resources to integrate public funds, making communities grow so as to give people back a social and political rolereversing, starting from the community level, that process of distancing citizens from politics that we have been feeling in our country for many years now.

We hope these ideas can be useful to anyone who finds themselves facing challenges similar to those of Cuore Visconteo.