O.P. Agritalia and Altromercato together to build prospects for inclusion: this is how the Primo Passo project was born, which during the last grape campaign of the Apulian O.P. involved six men and four women from Senegal, Libya and Ivory Coast in the harvesting and subsequent packaging of organic table grapes. The product was marketed at Esselunga stores with the group’s private label and the Altromercato brand: for every kilo of organic grapes purchased, consumers also contributed to the support and social and work integration of these people.
The project Primo Passo by O.P. Agritalia and Altromercato has involved six non-EU workers in the harvesting of organic grapes
Rethinking work as a possibility of inclusion, looking at the company as an organic part of the territory and society to which it belongs. These are the premises behind the Primo Passo project that O.P. Agritalia has created with Caritas Diocesana di Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie, Altromercato and the social enterprise Terre Solidali to offer refugees and marginalized people the opportunity to undertake a professional training path that allows social inclusion.
Promoter of the initiative, O.P. Agritalia wanted in this way to demonstrate concretely that Apulian agriculture is able to offer job prospects in a strategic sector for our country and that the fight against illegal work must involve all social actors, companies and institutions.
The fair trade grapes were sold in Esselunga with the group’s private label and the Altromercato brand.
The initiative took place during the last grape campaign, from August to the end of September, and involved six men and four women from Senegal, Libya and the Ivory Coast in the harvesting and subsequent packaging of organic table grapes. The result of this work was the production of organic table grapes sold in Esselunga stores with the group’s private label and the Altromercato brand, which conveyed the purpose and meaning of the project.
Cultivated and harvested with respect for people and the environment, the organic grapes of the O.P. Apulian . have thus become an instrument of legality: for every kilo purchased, consumers have contributed to guaranteeing these refugees a job with fair pay, safe and dignified housing, a suitable means of transport to get to the fields and a prospect of a future for those fleeing from a violent past.
Starting from these results, the goal of O.P. Agritalia is to extend the project to the collection and packaging of other products, to continue to accompany in the “First Step” all those who will need it
Italiano