Social initiatives

“Casa dolce Caritas” is a solidarity-based initiative promoted by Rome Diocese Caritas organisation and Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane on High-Speed trains and Stations throughout Italy for the Christmas period to help renovate the “Don Luigi Di Liegro” Hostel at Termini Station in Rome.

Gruppo FS Italiane volunteers worked alongside Caritas volunteers to collect donations for boxes of chocolates on Freccia trains from 9 December 2013 to 12 January 2014, whereas passengers were able to leave donations at ticket offices, self-service ticket machines and Frecciaclubs in stations.

The “Don Luigi Di Liegro” Hostel at Rome Termini Station is the largest hostel for the homeless in Italy. Renovation is currently underway and shall be completed in around 17 months. The overall cost entailed is around 4 million euros and 80% of the funds required have already been donated by public and private benefactors. The renovation project entails expanding the Hostel’s surface area by 50%: 650 square metres shall be used for sleeping areas and 250 square metres for daytime activities.

“A heart at the Station” project was created in 2008 out of the common desire of the Ferrovie dello Stato Group and Enel Cuore Onlus. The project led to the renovation, expansion or opening of Help Centres and Welcoming Centres, involving 11 Italian stations in total. Ferrovie dello Stato contributed with its properties inside and/or near stations while Enel Cuore allocated about Euro 3 million to the project, financing the renovation actions and purchasing useful equipment. Some of the Help Centres, renovated thanks to this project, were furnished by IKEA free of charge.

The Fund Raiser Campaign “Pietro non abita più qui” was started in 2010 as part of the “A heart at the station” project, during the European year against poverty and social exclusion.  120 voluntary railway operators along with Caritas volunteers offered travellers on trains a box of chocolates in exchange for a donation.

The revenues contributed to financing the renovation works at the Caritas “Don Luigi di Liegro” Hostel located in Via Marsala, Rome, which has been hosting the poor, the excluded and the homeless since the 1980s. The initiative enhanced the activities of Caritas in favour of the needy, creating a new functional space inside the Roma Termini area: a real social pole has been created, consisting of the Rome Help Centre, an outpatients’ ward, the Hostel and the Caritas soup kitchen together with the “Binario 95” day centre. The added value lies in the mutual integration of the specific activities: the Help Centre is taking the first steps to contact people without a fixed abode, the outpatients’ ward offers specialist medical services free of charge, the hostel and kitchen ensure suitable clothing, bodily cleanliness, the possibility of spending a night under cover and a warm meal until the morning when the “Binario 95” day centre starts providing assistance with the start of customised social requalification and rehabilitation courses.

In 2011 Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane promoted another important awareness and fund raiser campaign, which allowed the creation of the new “Caritas Shelter” in an area of the Milano Centrale station, a historical place for welcoming people in difficulty.

The 2011 initiative saw the commitment of volunteers from the FS Group and Caritas Ambrosiana in selling small panettone on trains; citizens and travellers could freely donate through the self service ticket counters at the station.

Thanks to the Fund Raiser Campaign 2011 and the contribution of Enel Cuore, as part of the “A heart at the station” project, Fondazione Cariplo and Fondazione Milan, the necessary water proofing/renovation works were carried out and the two premises of the structure (700 square meters), granted on free loan to Caritas Ambrosiana by FS, were brought up to code.

It was possible to create a place that meets the urgent need of the homeless to find shelter for the night. “Rifugio Caritas” in particular is not an arrival point but rather a starting point: the “guests” are enrolled in a social requalification and rehabilitation programme.

For this reason, the shelter is an integral part of the public and private social service network of the Milan territory, with an especially close relationship with the services directly managed by Caritas Ambrosiana: “sam” (Milan assistance service, aimed at Italians) and “sai” (immigrant assistance service, reserved for foreigners).

The contribution of the group of volunteers who provide evening entertainment and conversion opportunities to the assisted people is also fundamental.

The problem of refugees is always a topical issue. The wars that hit the world’s poorest the hardest lead to mass exoduses.

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane desires to be close to and help those who are committed to defending, assisting and ensuring the rights of these people. Since 2001, inside a former ferrotel, an unused hotel for railway operators, granted on free loan by FS, the Fondazione Centro Astalli, active since 1981, has been dealing with offering assistance to families with children reaching Italy to seek asylum. Over the years, the Astalli Centre has enhanced and diversified its offer and today offers initial assistance services (for people who have just arrived in Italy), secondary assistance services (to facilitate access to the labour market and accompany people along the path of introduction into the Italian society) and cultural activities. The centre is a new and original assistance model where professional training activities, educational projects for minors and Italian language courses are organised. The Centre aims to help each guest start a suitable social and working life. The project receives a contribution from the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Refugees, ANCI, the Interior Minister and the City of Rome.

For further details: Centro Astalli http://www.centroastalli.it/centro-pedro-arrupe.95.0.html

In 2010, the European Commission financed the Hope in Stations project, thus sharing the philosophy which underlies the European Charter: the need for an integrated approach among institutions, associations and railway companies to give new answers, through innovative methodologies, to the problem of hardship and social exclusion in stations. The target was to create a single reference for the coordination of all the actions at railway stations. A central role is attributed to the Help Centre, which will be the social reference point in the station, entrusted by FS with carrying out the priority function of social coordination and mediation with respect to the organisations operating in the social field at stations. The project involved Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane and the French and Belgian Railways, with the external contribution of the Spanish Railway Foundation, the Polish and Luxemburg Railways and significant contributions from leading European research institutes. For the first time at European level, social training courses were held for the railway personnel who come into contact with social issues in stations every day.

The course was aimed at informing the railway personnel on how and when to intervene in case of need, also providing a juridical framework of the responsibilities.

As a continuation of the Hope in Stations project, the European “Work in Stations” project began in March 2012, financed by the European Commission and involving three European nations: Italy, France and Belgium. The Italian partnership in particular comprises the City of Rome, Provincial and Regional Boards and ANIMA (Associazione Industriali del Lazio, which deals with social responsibility).

The project aims to develop actions which, with the contribution of local entities – railway companies, private companies, the service sector and local bodies – joined in partnership, analyse the potential offer of employment in the railway sector in order to promote actions for employment opportunities aimed at people at the margins of society in stations.

To coincide with the Christmas holidays, a fund raising was organised as usual by Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato, this year to support the rehabilitation project and the enlargement of five “Family Houses”: two in Genoa, two in Naples and one in Messina.

The houses are built as an alternative to the impersonal dormitories for the poor, with the intention to create a comfortable family environment where people in need are followed by volunteers and specialized personnel.  The 5 houses of the fund raising 2012 are managed by Comunità di Sant’Egidio, which operates in numerous parts of the world to help the weak.

The fund raising was activated in three different modes:

•  on trains, where 70 volunteers of Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane and volunteers of “Comunità di Sant’Egidio” presented a small chocolate box in exchange for a small money contribution.
• Through Trenitalia self-service ticket machines.
• With donations from the Group employees.

The total amount of donations exceeded 230,000 Euro. The collection is part of a larger programme of solidarity and social awareness initiatives in railway stations that aim at winning the indifference around the outcast and giving them a hope and a change for social reintegration. Among the initiatives, the granting of a free leasing contract to the Associations for thousands of square metres of railway buildings, in the entire national territory, in order to host hostels, daycare centres and Help Centers

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane have been supporting the reorganization and requalification of the unused FS real estate for years now