The shortage of personnel in various economic sectors is a topic on which Confcooperative Romagna places a lot of attention, seeking solutions that can respond to even more needs. The collaboration between the agri-food cooperative Agrentità and the social cooperative DiaLogos began a few days ago. A synergy that has led some migrant people, welcomed in the Extraordinary Reception Centers (Cas) managed by DiaLogos, to be hired in the Agrentità fruit and vegetable plant in Gambettola.
“Our work consisted in helping to bring our members together, in creating the conditions to be able to meet their respective needs – underlines Andrea Pazzi, director of Confcooperative Romagna -. We have cooperatives that deal with hospitality and that have in their centers people who need to integrate, to work and to be able to start building a new path for their lives; on the other hand we have many companies that have to deal with a structural shortage of personnel for their production activities and for the fundamental services of a territory. It is a starting point that could become a first step towards building a more structured reception and integration system for people coming to Italy.”
The DiaLogos cooperative welcomes around 100 people in 11 CAS located in the Forlì-Cesena area. The collaboration with Agrentità currently consists of the training and job placement of 4 women for the Agrentità plant in Gambettola, dedicated to fruit processing.
“This initiative highlights the ability of the cooperative system to promote synergies to respond to the needs of the communities – comments Aristide Castellari, president of Agrentità -: from the dialogue with Confcooperative Romagna the need to encourage meetings between social cooperatives involved in hospitality has emerged of migrants and agri-food cooperation structures in need of manpower to be used in the processing warehouses during the summer campaigns. Hence the successful collaboration with Dialogos, which led to the selection of some women to be included as sorters in our Gambettola plant with a seasonal contract until the end of August. We believe that this first experiment can pave the way for other and even more fruitful collaborations.”
DiaLogos is also actively working with other cooperatives to launch integration projects to propose to the people it welcomes in its centres. Another example that is bearing excellent fruit is the collaboration with the Cooperative Territorio Ambiente (Cta).
“We are attentive to all the opportunities that arise to facilitate the social inclusion of migrants – adds Patrizio Orlandi, president of DiaLogos -. Collaborations such as those in place with Agrentità and Cta have the double advantage of creating well-being for the people welcomed and for the companies that need manpower. From our point of view it makes no sense to keep the migrant people welcomed without trying to build something that can involve them. A training and work experience could be useful for them both if they remained in Italy and if they were to return to their countries, where they could make a contribution to sustainability. Obviously in this type of action the regulatory constraints must be taken into consideration: first of all the income limit that is imposed to stay in the reception centres. If people exceed this limit they have to leave the centres, at a time when they are not yet integrated into the territory, do not speak the language well and above all do not have a home. We must act by also considering these aspects in order to build structured and positive reception and integration paths.”
