Projects for the protection of women’s rights in Serbia

My name is Erica Guaraldo and I deal with partnerships between Private Companies and Foundations in Oxfam Italy. 

We work in Italy and in almost 90 countries worldwide to fight inequality and poverty. In all our programmes, we collaborate with local partners to guarantee women’s rights, allowing them to fully develop their talents and potential, eliminating all forms of violence. 

Thanks to Intesa Sanpaolo’s Charity Fund, we were able to strengthen an important programme to combat gender-based violence in Serbia, together with the local NGO Atina specialising in the protection of women’s rights.  

With this project we have addressed the problem of gender violence by directly and individually supporting the most vulnerable women and girls as well as supporting the professionals in the sector, helping them deal with the stress and trauma related to their job, so as to establish a higher level of trust with the women. 

Together with the Atina organisation, we have helped over 180 women in the project, supporting them with housing, protection from violence, empowerment workshops, orientation to legal and health services and psycho-social support; we have also had the opportunity to strengthen an effective network of services for the protection of survivors and suggest good practices that can influence not only other organisations who have the same issues, but also the institutions responsible for the protection of victims in the territory. 

I think that all good projects are born from the collaboration, experience, and innovative contributions that each person involved can make; for this reason, I suggest that organisations that want to present a project to the Intesa Sanpaolo Charity Fund carefully evaluate the Guidelines and present concrete and measurable actions that can positively impact people and the environment.