Municipality of Verona

The Municipality of Verona is a municipal public authority, with about 2,500 working people. The main areas are Demography, Human resources, Economic resources, Public works and public property, Social and Educational Services, Territory management, Culture, Information Technology, Statistics. The Equal Opportunities Culture Service is one of several services forming the area’s Social Services Department. It,s functions is to provide the services, means and opportunities for reflection in the following areas :

  • gender issues, though services and projects provided for women ;
  • encouraging intercultural integration, especially through facilitating scolarisation of foreign minors and of migrant women (multicultural pedagogy, langage teaching, spaces for meeting and exchange).
  • provision of equal opportunities and rights ( facilitating access to the network of public services, encouraging practical exchange programmes).

The services that in this area that are key actors in the CAPEvFAIR project are the Intercultural Centre for women « Casa di Ramia » and the unit operating on the field with women who are victims of traffic, coordinated by the Cooperative Azalea.

Casa di Ramia

Verona Municipality Manages a Multicultural Centre for native and migrant women (Casa di Ramia) involved in preventing violence against women and develop relations between migrant women and public services. The professionals involved in Casa di Ramia are a social worker, some intercultural mediators and a sociologist. Since 2001 it runs a projet on women’s trafficking (forced prostitution) and labour exploitation. It has also created an Antiviolence Centre (Petra) for battered women. It has participated in several local trainings and initiatives aiming at tackling (with a social worker and a psychologist).

Cooperative Azalea and team for harm reduction on the street

The Street Unit for victims of trafficking and prostitution of the cooperative Azalea, has been active in Verona for 10 years. The working team is composed by 2 psychologists, 2 educators, a social health operator, a cultural and linguistic mediator and a nurse. The Unit is focused on prevention and harm reduction, especially concerning infectious diseases for sex workers and their clients, and provides support, listening and counseling to those who prostitute themselves in the street.

The people the Unit works with are mostly women, coming from Nigeria and Eastern Europe. They are young, sometimes even minors and often victims of organizations that manage the traffic of human beings. When it is possible, the team serve sas a first contact for people seeking help in social protection programs, and is networked with the National Anti-Trafficking Toll.

Contact

Elena Migliavacca: elena.migliavacca@comune.verona.it

http://portale.comune.verona.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=2081

The “Casa di Ramia” team

She graduated cum laude in Philosophy with a dissertation on the relationship between imagination and reality.She has worked for three years in Managua in social reintegration of women prostitutes. She has been coordinator of the social cooperative CODESS, managing social services with a staff of 150 workers. As a social worker of the Municipality of Verona, she has worked in the Child Protection Service for 10 years, promoting the educational center“Le Fate”. With other social workers she founded the Association“Ishtar (women and interculture).

Since 2004 she is coordinator of “Casa di Ramia” in Verona. With other women, she created “La Tela”, a place to read together (1980), co-wrote the book  “L’altra relazione” edited by Paola Melchiorri, (1987). Meeting Letizia Comba at the University of Verona has changed her life. She contributed to the collective work “La materia dell’anima” (2000), edited by Letizia.

Elena Migliavacca

graduate social worker with a degree in intervention-research

She is a writer, a poet and an actress. She animates the meeting spaces of Casa di Ramia; her stories have become “master stories” and training tools for professional helpers in Verona. She collaborates with the Cooperative Azalea in the Street unit working with prostitutes and with Rosanna Cima in the training of health workers.

Sandra Faith Erhabor

cultural mediator (Edo language)