"Helping the helpers": commitment alongside Caritas Italiana continues

For the fourth consecutive year, Intesa Sanpaolo confirms its commitment, alongside Caritas Italiana, in the "Helping the helpers" programme: a partnership to fight poverty through widespread initiatives throughout Italy.

The initiatives planned for 2023-2024 focus on prisons and the reintegration of prisoners. In further detail:

• promotion of the values of respect for rules, legality and others, to overcome conditions of hardship and exclusion
• distribution of primary goods and other necessities, in particular meals, clothing and hygiene products, both in prison and in protected facilities
• hospitality and accompaniment services for inmates on temporary release, under house arrest or who have recently completed their sentences
• training, with vocational courses and accompaniment to work inside and outside prison, with work assignments during and at the end of the prison term

In previous years, initiatives focused on different areas of need, such as material goods and aid, housing and shelter, support in finding work – above all in peripheral areas of the country – elderly people and youth poverty.

Intesa Sanpaolo's strategic partnership with Caritas is an example of virtuous joint planning between profit and non-profit organisations in the service of the common good, with a focus on new forms of poverty.

Some numbers on the "Helping the Helpers" programme, launched in 2020 to help cope with the emergency caused by the pandemic:

• 1 million one-off interventions (meals, beds, medicines and clothing)
• 40,000 beneficiaries
• 80 diocese Caritas locations involved throughout Italy
• €4.5 million allocated by Intesa Sanpaolo from 2020 to 2023

Intesa Sanpaolo has recently announced that by 2027 it will allocate €1.5 billion to initiatives and projects aimed at reducing inequalities, to contribute to the good of the community, and will also set up a new dedicated organisational unit, Intesa Sanpaolo for Social.