Barbara B gets national relevance on La Repubblica. The Turin local edition of the newspaper edited by Maurizio Molinari gave substantial space to the news of the overseas landing of our Cooperative. After winning the contract to manage the green areas of the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust near Leeds.
The article, by Francesco Antonioli, reports the story of Barbara, a girl who died in November 2000 killed by an overdose of heroin. Right from that tragic moment Alessandro Di Mauro, together with Giovanni Catania and Antonino Piazza, decided to start the project to set up a Social Cooperative to encourage the integration of young people with difficult backgrounds. Currently, the Coop has a turnover of 15 million and about 400 employed, 80 percent of whom are disadvantaged.
A company that looks out for those who have problems but that still manages to function at its best, as the contracts awarded in 13 regions and in about seventy municipalities can prove. And now a new overseas adventure has begun, where Barbara B had already landed and where it doubled its presence with the Mid Yorkshire Hospital, an NHS Trust a few kilometers from Leeds. A one-year agreement that could be extended for another 24 months.
“The company, a type B social co-op – writes Francesco Antonioli on La Repubblica – demonstrates how Turin is a fertile laboratory for cultivating the impact economy. People with though backgrounds can be employed without reducing the quality of the service, which remains the pride of Barbara B“.