Golden Links: create new connections

Golden Links: create new connections. On the one hand, extreme poverty has, for a few years now, hit the very core of our country. These are people who need help finding a place worthy enough to call home, food, medical care and clothes. On the other hand, there are surplus stocks of new clothes that often do not make it to market. It’s a straightforward idea, spearheaded by charity workers who explained to us just how difficult finding underwear, clothing and shoes for young and old really is: bring manufacturers and those able to distribute clothing to those who need it together.

Golden Links was established in collaboration with social commitment actors such as Caritas Italiana and major corporate customers of the bank, including Calzedonia S.p.A., Camomilla Italia, Geox S.p.A., OVS S.p.A., BasicNet S.p.A., Solvay Chimica Italia S.p.A., Mondadori Education S.p.A. e Intesa Sanpaolo Smart Care S.r.l.

An incredible story, which tells us how different factors among them, the surplus production and the vulnerability experienced by marginalised women and prisoners can give rise, thanks to the collaboration of non-profit Italian organizations, to a new economy of value.

The project made fragility its strength, vulnerable people in fact packed and assembled the recovered clothing and shoes, creating real gift kits intended for equally vulnerable people. Simple gestures, made with care and that result in real moments of celebration during which the kits are delivered. A virtuous circuit to tell humanity in all its facets.

This project is carried out in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, set by the Un's 2030 Agenda. For more details, see the Sustainability section.

The strength of the connections of the Golden Links project has proven its value even in the Covid-19 emergency.

The chain of virtuous relationships that began in 2018, did not sop in the most critical hours of the emergency. In the most affected areas such as those of Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona and Padua, and in support of one of the most dramatic aspects of this emergency, social distancing and the consequent solitude of people hospitalized, Intesa Sanpaolo and the Calzedonia Group have made clothing available in the hospitals of Giovanni XXIII of Bergamo, Spedali Civili of Brescia, ASST of Cremona and Azienda Ospedaliera of Padua, to allow the replacement of hospitalized patients who cannot receive the necessary change from their families.

In this intervention the links of the chain change, frailties change, but the original DNA of a project that bases its strength on the relationship chain remains stable, so as to generate a territorial impact that integrates the actions and measures that Intesa Sanpaolo is putting in place in support of people, businesses and territories in this historic emergency so important for our country.