Rome, December 18th, 2019 - The promotion of prison work through the education and professional training of inmates is at the center of the project “Mi riscatto per il futuro” (I redeem myself for the future), which is the focus of the Memorandum of Understanding that Italy’s Minister of Justice, Alfonso Bonafede, and Enel's CEO, Francesco Starace, signed today at the Ministry of Justice in Rome.
The project aims to create a qualifying training program for inmates, aimed at helping them acquire skills that can be used in the workplace. In particular, in penitentiaries, the project will activate training programs that are modular and flexible in terms of content and duration, to facilitate the reintegration of inmates and their acquisition of individual skills and capabilities and to identify possible occupational placements.
The memorandum is based, on the one hand, on the positive experiences that the Enel Group already had in promoting professional training increasingly geared to the specific needs of the world of work and, on the other, on the commitment of the Ministry of Justice - Department of Prison Administration - to develop work activities in favor of inmates, in order to reduce the risk of recidivism and favor their reintegration into society.
The agreement also provides for the possibility of developing further joint projects, including in the international field: in this sense, a collaboration will soon be launched as part of the community service implementation project in the Mexico City penitentiary system. Furthermore, areas of intervention will be identified to make the penitentiary structures more sustainable through energy efficiency solutions and the development of energy production plants from renewable sources.
"Today we laid out an important commitment, a virtuous path of collaboration that I hope will become a model to replicate,” said Alfonso Bonafede, Italy’s Minister of Justice. “Our commitment is not only aimed at rehabilitating inmates but also includes the safety of the community, because when an inmate is released from prison they hardly return to commit a crime, thanks to projects like this.”
"We are particularly proud of having signed an agreement that favors a more rapid abandonment of the 'gray zone', the one between leaving prison and reintegrating into civil society, supporting the entry of inmates into the labor market to reduce the risk of running into the same mistakes of the past,” commented Enel CEO Francesco Starace. “The objective is to propose professional training in line with the rapid evolution of the world of work. The projects that will be developed thanks to the protocol confirm the commitment that Enel has taken on to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; in particular for a fair and inclusive growth and education."