LIBERA - Associazioni, Nomi e Numeri contro le mafie

Libera - logoFor over ten years Unipol has supported Libera, the association founded in 1995 to consolidate the principles and culture of legality against organised crime, to promote economic development and social cohesion.

Unipol’s commitment has been instrumental in the following key projects:

  • One euro per policy and current account” campaigns, thanks to which funds are provided to support the creation of new cooperatives operating on property confiscated from the mafia, where they mostly manage farmland to produce organic “Libera Terra” branded products. Over 10 years, through campaigns providing “one euro for each new policy affiliated with member organisations and each new bank account”, almost 2 million euro has been given to Libera cooperatives.
  • Soft loans to cooperatives belonging to the Mediterranean Libera Terra Consortium. Worthy of mention is the financial support for the cooperative “Calcestruzzi Ericina”, a business confiscated from the mafia in Trapani, with a 700-thousand-euro twenty-year loan, without interest or guarantees, granted by Unipol Banca for the construction of a new inert recycling plant. Today the cooperative has six partners, employees of the company before confiscation, and the green silos of the new “Ericina Libera” produce ecological cement partially made from recovered demolition debris.
  • Participation in the Agency Cooperare con Libera Terra that supports the cooperatives on a professional level.
  • Raising the awareness among the employees of all Group Companies through the annual organisation, supported by the Unipol Bologna employee association, of a Fair Trade Group for the purchase of products and through the experience of the E!State Liberi volunteer camps.
  • Support for LiberaIdee, the travelling campaign across the Italian peninsula to map mafia-related crime and episodes of corruption while searching for and publicising organisations that promote the value of legality every day. The ultimate purpose of the journey is to foster the anti-mafia and anti-corruption movement and give new stimuli to the creation of aggregation sites and relationships between the people who are the drivers of the change that we want to achieve on our territories against mafias and corruption.
  • Continuous and constant support by the Unipolis Foundation for Libera association activities and its most important initiatives, including: the National day of remembrance and commitment against the mafia, sponsored masters degrees on management of confiscated property, the Libero Cinema initiative as part of the Libera Terra touring festival bringing cinema to towns, and the International Anti-mafia Tour.

The Unipol-Libera partnership is therefore not limited to financing cooperatives that operate on confiscated property, but also contributes to the cultural, social and economic development of areas oppressed by the mafia, working based on the values and the local identity of each place and solidarity between distant communities.