1. Speaker: Luciano Bedin
SOCIAL COOPERATION IN TIMES OF CRISIS Financial Issues
Primavera 85
The True Story of
an Italian Social Cooperative
Speaker: Luciano Bedin 1

2. Activities are run by 50 operators assisted
Presentation
Primavera 85 runs day centres, school projects, after-school services and afternoon rehabilitation services that involve about 200 families every day.
Activities are run by 50 operators assisted
by a large group
of volunteers. 2

3. Mission: become an asset and a resource for communities with centres.
We mainly deal with:
People with autism
People with mental and physical disabilities
Elderly people with disabilities
Job training and placement
After-school activities
Learning difficulties
The elderly and third-age issues
Running a shop 3

4. CLP – Center for job training
This center is dedicated to people with various degree of disabilities.
Its aim is to support disabilitated people in the path towards the world of work.

5. Alternative Jewellery project
Involves people with mild mental and physical disabilities
who do not need to attend a day centre.
AIM: develop manual skills in order to foster their chances of finding local employment
BY  setting up a goldsmith’s workshop where all work is done by hand 5

6. Valorise (not compete with) Vicenza’s traditional goldsmith system
GOING FOR GOLD
This workshop uses some of Vicenza’s longest standing goldsmiths to ensure that decades of experience will not be lost to the current crisis and to create a link between old and new generations, resulting in a wide range of people being able to benefit from the workshop.
Valorise (not compete with) Vicenza’s traditional goldsmith system
Social inclusion of people
in training scheme 6

7. How much did it cost?
All of the tools were donated by local goldsmith workshops
and the workshop itself is housed at the job training day centre.
Consequently, in financial terms,
the cooperative did not have to make an investment. 7

8. Commercial development
Imperfection is our added value
Unique jewellery displayed during special exhibitions
at project-partner jewellers’, interviews on local TV, a website.
MORE THAN 50 JEWELLERS INVOLVED 8

9. Local Repercussions
Users: more training/placement opportunities in an environment that leads to proper social inclusion.
Cooperative: chance to offer innovative training schemes and receive income.
Young designers: chance to fulfil projects and learn from skilled craftsmen.
Older goldsmiths: chance to pass on their knowledge.
Redundant workers: chance to work alongside trainees as volunteers.
Vicenza goldsmith industry: chance to safeguard part of its patrimony and knowledge. 9

10. Strategic partners
Retired goldsmiths or goldsmiths who have closed down their business
Disability department’s and Vicenza Local Health Authority’s Work Placement Service
Psychiatry department’s Work Placement Service (Vicenza Local Health Authority)
Vicenza Local Health Authority’s Disability department
Veneto Productivity Centre (CPV), Vicenza
Walter Maino’s advertising/photo studio
E-Team communication agency
Ireland’s tinymonkeydesign agency
Vicenza exhibition centre
Young designers
Volunteers
Dozens of jewellers’ throughout the Triveneto area 10

11. Thanks to our partners and to a hard-hitting advertising campaign, the initiative has been successful, and allowed us to expose in different goldsmith workshops, as well as in congress and summits.

12. During one of the last events, we got in touch with Rwanda Jewels workshop.
This initiative is part of the program of scientific and didactic collaboration between IVAV University of Venice (Italy) and KIST, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, Rwanda, and it involves also the cultural collaboration program carried out between the cited IVAV and the Foundation Claudio Buziol. Partner and sponsor of the enterprise is The Soroptimist International.
The result? A successfull joint-venture between plant-fibers productors and our experienced and appreciated unique jewellery, with the aim of helping our partners to manufact objects suitable for european taste.

13. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING
Luciano Bedin 13