One
of the first Italian anti-violence centres, which in January moved to a new
location in via Masia, was created in Bologna in 1990. Over 16 thousand women
have found a friendly ear, support and refuge in the association since it first
opened. For FARE INSIEME Charity, Lucrezia Lanzani interviewed Valeria
D’Onofrio, member, operator and personnel manager at Casa delle Donne in
Bologna.
FARE INSIEME
CHARITY is the spin-off of the FARE INSIEME project dedicated to the
presentation of some onlus and non-profit associations with roots in the area
around Bologna, Ferrara and Modena and that carry out extraordinarily important
and crucial work for the entire community. Here are some of their stories.
by Lucrezia Lanzani*
“Femicide: a
term that identifies the killing of women as women.” This type of extreme
violence is usually the climax of a story of violence carried out through
various misogynistic behaviour (abuse, sexual abuse, physical or psychological
violence).
Bologna,
1985: three cases of rape of under-age girls pushed some organizations to
discuss gender-based violence. Five years later, one of the first anti-violence
centres was set up in Via Capramozza: a group of women for women, with the
purposes of providing answers to those in need. Talking about violence is the
only way to prevent it. In 1990, the institutions welcomed the “Casa delle
Donne per non subire violenza” project, though the doubts about whether the
phenomenon actually existed persisted: violence seemed inconceivable in a
territory with such a high rate of employment and education.
“Yet 350
women asked for our help that year, and that number has been growing ever
since. Each development sees an increase in the number of requests. First there
was one shelter, then two, then three, up to the current 68 beds,” explains
Valeria D’Onofrio, member, operator and personnel manager at Casa delle Donne.
A figure
that never stops, just like the problem tackled. An ever-evolving reality,
fruit of a constant study of the phenomenon on a global level, which brought
about multiple collaborations to meet women’s requests. Unlike what is often
portrayed by the media, the quest for justice and the filing of charges are not
the primary objective but only one of the many tools available to women who
wish to emerge from a situation of violence, and it is possible to reach out to
a centre even without pressing charges. The main objective is to break the
cycle of violence and enable women to regain control over their lives.
“Casa delle Donne is this too: educate the
world to what happens every day. For years we have been organizing
awareness-raising campaigns for everyone from infants to adults, because we
need to “de-construct” what violence actually stems from to prevent it from
happening again,” stresses D’Onofrio. On 25 November, the International Day for
the Elimination of Violence against Women, the association organizes a festival
to fill a gap. Fear does very little, everything lies in culture and education.
Hard work
that lasts over time, but which is still not enough. It is useless to turn
violence into a show, Casa delle Donne exists to remind women that there is a
way out, a new chance. It has been working in the same way for 34 years: it
tackles the problem, finds solutions and invents opportunity. The commitment is
constant. The help available is as extensive as the requests: from flats and
homes to initiatives to support work and parenthood, social reintegration,
legal aid and operators have been providing 24-7 assistance over the phone for
almost 15 years. “We are contacted by victims of violence, prostitution and
trafficking, by their families, people of all ages and nationalities. In 2023
alone, we dealt with almost 1,000 requests between those already under-way and
new ones,” says D’Onofrio.
Over 16,000
women have found refuge with this association since it opened: a small army of
people who understood that theirs was not only a private story and chose to
tell their story and ask for help. The most striking thing when faced with this
number is the hope on the faces of the volunteers, who look to their “success
stories” with determination, always aiming for top results and managing to keep
a smile on their faces.
This also enabled the start of the Atlante dei
Femminicidi, a research project to map and respond to a phenomenon of which the
world is finally gaining awareness after years of silence. It is thanks to
associations such as Casa delle Donne, that studies the phenomenon of violence
in different existing realities starting from the city of Bologna, where it
found a new location in Via Massenzio Masia. “A new barrier-free facility thus
accessible to everyone, which has been needed ever since we began to study the
phenomenon of gender-based violence linked with disability. In addition to
this, for the past two years we have been actively collaborating on a project
involving other victims of violence: the orphans, i.e. children who have lost
both parents due to violence and families that need support,” illustrates
Valeria D’Onofrio.
Casa delle
Donne is an organization so big that it has no intention to stop. It exists
thanks to the founders, who probably did not expect all this. It exists thanks
to the 50 members, operators and volunteers who attend a training course to be
able to provide the support required. It exists thanks to collaborations such
as that with D.i.Re, Donne in Rete contro la violenza. It exists for and thanks
to the hundreds of women who, every year, find the courage to embark on a
journey to come out of violence. It exists thanks to all those supporters who,
also thanks to crowd-funding initiatives such as that launched to support
moving expenses (to which you can still contribute), enable Casa delle Donne to
continue operating on the territory and help develop its project, a project
that must have not end, at least until even only one woman needs help. A
project that must continue to find solutions and remind us that this is
everyone’s problem and we must keep talking about it.
*Lucrezia
Lanzani is a student at the Steam Emilia High School. She is sixteen years old
and has always been interested in social issues. She has been volunteering for
three years in different organisations in her community.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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