LA BOTTEGA SOLIDALE SOCIETA' COOPERATIVA SOCIALE A RESPONSABILITA' LIMITATA

Bottega Solidale is a social cooperative that has been involved in Fair Trade for more than 20 years. Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South of the world. Since it was born, La Bottega Solidale has engaged itself in the promotion of awareness and information projects about the North and South of the world, and in the encouragement of active citizenship. La Bottega Solidale manages 4 shops, two of which in the city centre, and has 18 employees, more than 1000 associates and over 50 volunteers. Since 1998 La Bottega Solidale has promoted and managed a twinning project with the COPABU Cooperative of Butare, Rwanda, in which Hutu and Tutsi, the two ethnic groups at odds during the bloody civil war, worked side to side in the production of fibre and wooden objects, imported and distributed by our cooperative throughout Italy. In 2015 La Bottega Solidale has activated its first fair-trade import project with Tunisia. Collaborating with a local business it has started an activity of importation of stoneware products, with the finality of promoting economic and social growth in the crafting community, by means of a creative, productive and well-organized development. The products are distributed through the Fair-Trade Italian network with the brand Tunisia Fair Design. For more than 10 years our cooperative has managed the O’Press workshop inside the male penitentiary of Genoa Marassi. Said project is designed to give a sense of social and personal value to the conviction. O’Press is a screen-printing workshop where the source material comes from the fair-trade network, namely t-shirts, bags, sweatshirts are produced and imported from businesses that are actual members of the World Fair Trade Organization. The customization takes place inside the penitentiary’s screen-printing laboratory where a group of four prisoners work. The inmates are regular La Bottega Solidale’s employees. With this project we can say that La Bottega sets out a path which completes its mission while establishing a 100% ethical and social supply chain. La Bottega Solidale has implemented on the Genoese territory various cultural events for over 30 years now on the topic of fair-trade economy. Moreover, every year it implements hundreds of training activities in schools to raise awareness in students and teachers on the topics of fair-trade economy. Since 2013 La Bottega Solidale manages the Regional and National Civil Service and since April 2019 it is leader of the Altromercato Universal Civil Service network, coordinating a network made of almost 40 fair trade organisations. At the moment, for the National Civil Service, La Bottega Solidale is coordinating the project “We Want to Change the World – Young people for a fair trade economy” in 4 different Italian regions (Liguria, Piemonte, Lombardia and Veneto) which has almost 40 active volunteers in the period of time that goes from December 2018 to December 2019