Reggio Emilia is the first Italian city to adopt a local action plan to combat racism, discrimination related to ethnic/origin and affiliation, and hate crimes.
As emphasised by the Mayor, Luca Vecchi, “The plan was designed through a threefold process which involved capacity building and identification of weaknesses, collaboration between different municipal services and departments, and active dialogue and exchange with more than 35 civil society organisations. Today Reggio Emilia is the first city to adopt a local plan to combat racial discrimination and to take concrete action to respond to one of the main challenges of contemporary times”.
The local plan is one of the outcomes of the European project “Super” (Supporting Everyday Fight Against Racism) in which the city of Reggio Emilia and the Mondinsieme Foundation are participating together with the municipalities of Turin and Bologna and the association Altera (Turin). In the next few days, Bologna and Turin will also approve their own action plans, followed by the city of Milan in the coming months.
The European project allowed the local authority to define a comprehensive strategy starting from the needs assessment which involved municipal employees and local representatives of the police, followed by a participatory process of dialogue and exchange which involved more than 35 NGOs and third sector organisations in Reggio Emilia.
"The twentieth anniversary of the implementation of intercultural policies and of the setting up of Mondinsieme has coincided with Reggio Emilia receiving several important recognitions," notes Daniele Marchi, Councillor for Welfare including "the visit of the European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli, the recognitions of the Council of Europe and the Intercultural Cities programme, and the public acknowledgment of the associations that are part of the Mondinsieme Foundation. Through the adoption of this action plan, we are taking a series of commitments on which the Administration will work in the coming years, and will seek to do so together with the institutions, organisations, associations and civil society of our territory”.
The action plan is divided into five areas of action: training and awareness-raising, data collection, services to citizens, internal organisation and transversal-participation-responsibility. There are dozens of objectives that are to be translated into operational actions with the support of a working group composed of various services of the Administration. Among the actions envisaged in the plan there are the launch of a training programme for the Administration's staff on anti-discrimination and intercultural competence, the establishment of an observatory on racism and discrimination, and a series of actions to be implemented in different areas, from education to housing, from access to services to communication.
The action plan has been designed with the intention of completing the existing policies related to valuing diversity, building inclusive societies, and fighting discrimination. With the view to integrate an intersectional approach in the institutional policy-making, the action plans further takes into account and strengthens the existing system of memoranda of understanding, strategic documents and organisational and monitoring devices related to discriminatory phenomena and violations of people's rights, including:
- the inter-institutional working group and memorandum of understanding and operational protocol for combating homotransnegativity and for the inclusion of LGBTI people;
- the inter-institutional working group and memorandum of understanding for combating female genital mutilation;
- the inter-institutional working group and memorandum of understanding for combating violence against women;
- the inter-institutional working group Reggio Emilia City without Barriers, for the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities;
- DiTutti, the Strategic Actions Plan for Intercultural Policies and the Coordination of Human Rights of the Municipality.
