Social Inclusion
We promote social inclusion as a key value in creating value for communities
The marginalisation of the most vulnerable is damaging for the entire community from all perspectives. Everyone can actually make their own contribution to developing the local area and the community in which they live, but they need support and a solid and inclusive social network.
On the strength of this belief, we support many projects targeted at social inclusion in different areas.
Mediobanca is a participant in the UNHCR programme for the protection of female refugees and asylum seekers at risk of gender based violence in Italy
Following its support for the UNHCR program for the protection of refugee women, the Mediobanca Group has strengthened its partnership with UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, by supporting an integrated programme for the protection of unaccompanied foreign minors in Italy.
The main aim of this programme is to come alongside unaccompanied foreign minors from the time when they arrive in Italy, helping them overcome the obstacles they face in attempting to make a new start: from learning a new language, to developing new social relations, understanding their rights in terms of being integrated into the education, and helping them find job opportunities.
In particular the Mediobanca Group will be working with UNHCR to promote and reinforce knowledge of the figure of the “volunteer tutor”, who is key in providing support for minors, many of whom are children, at the delicate stage of their arrival.
Sport is a powerful way of bringing people together socially and through our projects we support its strong values: loyalty, sense of belonging, determination and team work.
INSIEME is a long term project created in collaboration with CUS Milano Rugby and the Municipality of Milan to promote sport for young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and at risk of exclusion in several outer-Milan districts. The initiative, launched in 2017 by the Quarto Oggiaro zone, was subsequently extended to via Padova and Baggio. In addition to the teaching of the sporting disciplines of rugby, volleyball and track and field, we also provide a psychologist who offers support for the most difficult family situations. Group volunteers also took part activities in the field. The Group has also financed the refurbishment of the most run down sports facilities in the areas involved. The Group has renewed its support for a third three-year period (2023-26).
After eight years at the ‘Cesare Beccaria’ institute for juvenile offenders in Milan, the Mediobanca Sport Camp has also come to the Nisida IPM in Naples for the second year running: a multi-sport camp designed to offer inmates a week of sport, competition, respect for rules and fair play. In this its ninth year, Group employees were once again directly involved in the Camp, held at the end of June 2025, taking part in the activities in shifts and working together with the Camp staff throughout the week.
We promote and support projects that address difficult family and personal situations, by attempting to reintegrate young people at risk of truancy and social exclusion into the community and job networks.
The Mediobanca Group is renewing its commitment to social inclusion by helping young offenders to reintegrate into society by supporting a nationwide project called Orizzonti, Horizons, in conjunction with Fondazione Francesca Rava – NPH Italia ETS.
“Horizons” has been developed as part of a wider project called “Palla al Centro” (“Back to the centre circle”) already launched by the Fondazione Francesca Rava in Lombardy, covering the 17 institutions for juvenile offenders in the region, after the foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Italian Department of Juvenile and Community Justice in 2024.
The “Horizons” project’s mission is to offer the young inmates, who are aged between 14 and 25, at the criminal institutions for juvenile offenders at Milan, Pontremoli, Rome and Naples, Bari and Catanzaro, a concrete opportunity for a new start and reintegration into society and the workplace through direct involvement in manual and training activities alongside Mediobanca Group staff volunteers, the foundations’ own educators, and professional figures specializing in the various disciplines.
Different activities will be offered at the six institutions participating in the project: from painting the walls of the institutions to theoretical and practical gardening courses, and workshops on cutting and decorating, to acquire new skills but also to learn new processions by developing their appreciation for beauty; the young people involved will also be given an opportunity to create their own graffiti wall mural, using the healing properties of art to help them come to terms with the reality of their prison environment.
Accademia del legno is one of the Mediobanca Group’s landmark projects in the area of social inclusion.
Set up in 2018 from a joint venture between the Bank and the Cometa Contrada degli Artigiani social co-operative, Accademia del legno is a social artisanal enterprise, intended to offer employment opportunities to young people with social, economic and personal difficulties, with the objective of becoming a sustainable and self-standing business, providing products and services of excellence in the field of furniture and interior design.
Now in its sixth year, the Academy of Woodworking is a stable business, which has achieved impressive results in terms of training and employment:
More than 330 students have attended the “Oliver Twist” school run by Cometa and received training in the woodworking sector;
- 30 apprenticeships provided to students in the woodworking, decoration and furnishing sector;
- 10 new tutors recruited full-time;
- 6 young people employed full-time.
In the first year, over 100 young people and 19 teachers and tutors were involved. Some Mediobanca Group employees also participated as volunteers, supporting the students in their activities on selected days.
See press release
‘Tessiamo il futuro’ (‘Weaving the Future’) confirms the ongoing partnership between the Mediobanca Group and Cometa, who together in 2018, along with the Cometa social co-operative ‘Contrada degli Artigiani’, launched ‘L’Accademia del Legno’ (the ‘Academy of Woodworking’): a social enterprise offering job opportunities to young people facing difficult social, economic, and personal circumstances.
In the United Kingdom, the Mediobanca London branch office has launched a partnership with the local charity St Mungo’s, including volunteering activities by some of the branch colleagues, to help the homeless find secure housing.
Health is an inalienable human right. Assistance for the sick is not only important from a medical point of view, but from a psychological perspective. For this reason, we support charities active in the Milan area in the health and socio-assistance domain.
Mediobanca has confirmed its support for VIDAS, a charity provides complete healthcare and assistance free of charge to patients suffering with terminal cancer, both at home and in the Casa Vidas hospice in Milan. We pledged our contribution to the association the Casa Sollievo Bimbi which provides care and relief for children and young people at advanced stages of incurable diseases and their families.
Association Bambini del Danubio (Danube Children): for the second consecutive year, Mediobanca made a donation to provide medical care to sick children from disadvantaged families in the Danube-Balkan region.