The Lunaria SDD Team – from left to right:
Angela Pagano, Sergio Andreis, Sara Mandozzi, Grazia Naletto, Mara Petrocelli, Marcello Mariuzzo
Involvement in the SDD project
Vaishnavi Ramlochan Tewarie, AFEdemy, Academy on Age-Friendly Environments in Europe B. V.
One of the partners working on the SDD project is project partner Lunaria. They joined the SDD project because the project addresses some of the core topics for which Lunaria has been active since its foundation in 1992 and about which they could contribute and exchange with the other SDD partner organisations, as well as with the project direct and indirect beneficiaries, their experiences and perspectives as non-profit civil society organisation involved against discriminations and for citizenship rights and social inclusion.
Awareness-raising, advocacy, networking with other Italian and EU NGOs and policy proposals at the national and European levels have been part of their daily work. SDD has offered new channels and new tools – like, for example, the SDD educational game – to improve the impact of their activities. They thank the Erasmus+ Programme for the support granted to the SDD project.
Positive points project
Lunaria describes the drafting of the SDD Compendium and the SDD policy recommendations. Because they both have been thought-provoking learning experiences: in the case of the Compendium, specifically through the interviews they carried out, they have learned from intense life stories, and they could then take advantage of those collected in the other SDD partner countries. In the preparation of the policy recommendations and the identified national best practices. Lunaria has been exposed to information and proposals they were unaware of before.
Most important takeaway from the project
The most important takeaway from the project for Lunaria was the SDD approach: “SDD aims to make positions and experiences of discrimination more visible. In this way, a self-reflexive and empathetic approach to the topic is to be promoted, as it is used, for example, in anti-racist and feminist educational workshops. Experience shows that participants often find it difficult to change perspectives if conventional means such as knowledge transfer are applied. The project wants to close this gap by the multimedia-based approach of the game and the accompanying material.”
Because without change, racism and discrimination will not be overcome.
Next step
Lunaria mentions three main steps they will be taking for the SDD project:
- Dissemination of the SDD publications among the Italian networks they cooperate with and to contribute to increasing their knowledge with relevant civil society stakeholders.
- Sharing the project’s policy recommendations among decision-makers – from the local to the EU levels – to hopefully influence their policies and actions in the directions the SDD project advocates.
- To enrich their educational offer, they finally plan to include the SDD game in their international youth exchange activities dealing with discrimination-related topics.
About Lunaria
Lunaria was founded in 1992. Since 1996, Lunaria has been promoting research on migration flows, information, and campaigns to promote the rights of migrant citizens and actions to fight racism and xenophobia. Their campaigns mainly focus on acknowledging active and passive voting rights for foreigners and safeguarding their civil and social rights. They advocate decision-making on permanence, and residence permits to the civil structures, the introduction of ordinary procedures for the regularisation of foreign citizens in Italy and the closure of the so-called Italian Centres of Identification and Expulsion.