Translator: Erica Varlese Reviewer: Anna Picas Alabau
Hi. This is an opportunity to speak
about some experiences I've had in my life.
Experiences so varied that I could be speaking about different lives.
I'm here to tell you all about dreams I've accomplished
that have gone from ideas to facts.
In this first life of mine,
which lasted for 22 years, in the banking sector
I was the main character in various success stories,
and I worked in finance, the treasury,
commercial banking, marketing, the traditional sectors of banking
and then I was given a small account and that's how I created
the first model for a virtual multi-channel bank in Italy.
Big success, this capacity to create these models
and these useful tools for employees, for customers.
It gave me the opportunity to look inside myself
and I thought about changing lives while still remaining in the finance world,
and thus, from the first virtual bank model,
I chose to live for four years in Milan doing similar work,
in the world of finance, but with a greater agenda,
and I created these models,
to automate the learning process, in Sanpaolo IMI,
and I created a "knowledge management" platform where,
in real time, all of the information arrived from the product factory,
funds, asset management, to the network of the local branches.
Great success, great initiative, enough interest.
Because I was making so much money,
they asked me to pursue this renowned career and travel the world
to streamline the foreign branches of the Sanpaolo IMI network.
And thus, I traveled to Eastern countries, to Asia,
and reviewed a bit of the offering system of the local branches' network.
Here I had a realization, and I began to feel discomfort
in this ending of my first life.
I felt uncomfortable because the inadequacy of the banking system
is even more obvious today in Italy and throughout the world.
It's clear.
We have seen business failures due,
above all, not to inability or lack of creativity of the entrepreneurs,
but often because the banks leave their clients holding the bag.
I felt a bit out of place and let's say I was lost.
So I began to think of ways to give this energy of mine,
this desire, this tenacity, the desire for change
an outlet, and to propose other options.
So, I left, and I had a short experience in Brazil,
where I wanted to have direct contact with poverty.
I was very rich in material wealth,
and I wanted to find a different type of wealth, an internal wealth.
And this way I put on a new pair of glasses and saw life differently.
So I started my socially-conscious company and, thus, in my second life,
I founded Officina Creativa, launching various projects
that touched on various subjects, forgotten sectors:
I worked with at-risk youth,
I worked in the field of social messaging;
in schools, talking about renewable energy and saving energy.
I developed models
that could give value to intangible behaviors,
such as being punctual in paying your water bill,
and I started many activities launching brands
and new models of development.
Then my great love was born with "Made in Carcere,"
because my desire was to have an impact in situations of extreme need.
"Made in Carcere" is a very interesting experience,
and it is my second life,
and I already have an idea for 2013 that I think will take off, no doubt,
and that will be a success, the idea of a summer school,
because my dream, to realize in my old age,
is to always be around kids.
So, to create a familial environment with summer schools,
to create "educational" and formative models,
full of joy and irony.
Returning to my second life,
the project that occupies the biggest part of my life
is the contact I have with the world of incarceration.
A very difficult relationship, with a very strong impact,
but real, where the absence of any element
generates maximum creativity and develops a very strong sense of creativity,
along with an equally strong sense of survival.
I began the "Made in Carcere" project
thinking of the moment when I saw so many paper bags
which are destroyed within a few hours,
two days at most, these glossy, beautiful bags.
I thought it could be useful to try sewing,
because it's very easy to sew a tote bag,
and we thought of creating packaging
for grocery shopping, gifts, but also for seminars and events.
Simply, instead of wearing a bag, wearing a message.
The idea of placing the sponsor's message and attaching it to the fabric.
The bag that has this mark, goes around, and thus,
spreads this idea of consciousness-raising
through this formula of social marketing.
It will last for so long, a few years,
and thus this message will continue to be conveyed
but the project also moves people, and fosters a sensitivity
bringing attention to the usage of things that we already have.
Because, often, in fact, we use recycled products,
materials, stock remnants or scraps,
and they are often abandoned in mass. Instead, we collect them.
Some non-profits here in Como also give us scraps,
like the organization "Mare di Moda."
The interesting thing is they are all happy.
Clearly the reason we can exist
is that female prisoners receive a regular wage.
We will review this line of thought a little deeper later.
And we can exist if someone knows about us.
Thus, instead of making fashionable purses, very beautiful,
but few and expensive, I chose to make many bags at a cheaper price,
that can go anywhere from 2 to 5 Euros,
so as to spread as much as possible
a model of development that approaches a new lifestyle,
a new way of being marketable, but also using the things we already have.
Thus, a lifestyle, a philosophy,
that has allowed us to accommodate a further 22 prisoners.
We also have external resources
that work to help us, precisely, in communications and marketing.
And with 2-5 euros at a time we are succeeding.
Our current results, for example, up to mid-October,
are another 400,000 euros in gain.
And this means that I can give back a joy,
a richness that isn't made from money, from material wealth,
but that is created from experience,
from the contact with these other human beings
who are in this extremely disadvantaged and often inaccessible situation.
My experience in the field of technological and social innovation
allowed me to really work on an extremely interesting offer,
and I thought our understanding of innovation
applied to good sense is given, say, from this virtuous circle
where we are all happy, where everyone wins
because those who give us remnants of beautiful fabric for free,
which often cause pain because they are thrown away,
but if they are donated, and reused,
surely even the entrepreneurs are making a social contribution.
With a truck, we collect them, we cut them,
they are sewn in the prisons and we make many bags of all types.
We have even made bags for technological use,
iPad covers, we've made cases for these technological products.
Therefore, more than reusable shopping bags, bags for events,
now we make cases for technical goods.
Thus innovation, applied with good sense,
for us is a model of good use in the world.
I would like you to see, and touch with your hands,
what I have spoken with you about.
"Made in Carcere" is practically my second life:
...making it like this; making it the way they want.
Female prisoners receive regular earnings,
and these earnings mean holidays, overtime, illness, medical certificates,
family care, lateness, hours, entrances and exists, coffee breaks,
so, all concepts of reintegration into the workforce.
In the real world, they are known,
but inmates have often never worked before
and thus these are important concepts that really help
as a mechanism for reintegration into the real world.
In Brussels, during the week for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Opening, the winners of the competition for the best video of 2010.
Our correspondent Mariolina Sattanino.
"The economic crisis has taught us to look at the world differently",
the vice president of the Tajani commission said,
talking to Swedish, Romanian, Croatian entrepreneurs,
and with two Italian entrepreneurs: Luciana Delle Donne,
Who created a cooperative to help female prisoners
create using recycled materials.
Lecce, maximum security prison, the women's ward.
Here, the label "Made in Carcere" was born,
created by Luciana Delle Donne along with a group of inmates.
LDD: I brought you fabrics...
Narrator: Luciana Delle Donne left her career in banking,
returned to Puglia, and started a social cooperative.
Here the work focuses on restoring the dignity of people,
and also restoring discarded material.
Scraps designers would have thrown out are recycled into fashionable objects.
Behind the label "Made in Carcere" there are three workshops
in the prisons of Lecce and Trani, for a total of 22 inmates,
stipended with the returns from the sales of their goods.
They primarily produce bags for conferences and packaging.
Inmate: If you learn to love in such a difficult place
and to make it beautiful,
you cannot not be in love with life, with everything,
Because then outside, it seems like you've found paradise.
It's obvious, right?
(Applause)
And without this meaningful experience, that has an impact
that maybe today will serve everyone.
So, some notes: this economic suicide, this accompaniment
to poor values, and thus the change, the one which we're living,
the chaos: this is the outline that explains my project.
Where there is always chaos, there is always reflection,
but where there is a vision,
extremely lucid, so much so
that it's not possible to shut it out,
not to generate a change that has in mind larger social benefit.
It's not possible to continue to get rich off the backs of others,
to maintain an attitude of silence, and to not rebel
in situations of extreme need.
Personally, it causes me a lot of discomfort,
and this is a way to express that it can be done, instead,
with sustainable models of development, business can be created
and thus my project can be replicated at an industrial level,
it can be scaled.
And of the 67,000 inmates, 10 percent are female.
So, instead of 22, I would like to have 2,200 inmates that sew bags
because these are always useful to everyone.
I have had a rather interesting experience,
"Sette mostre per l'Italia!".
With a sailboat I left Italy, to think
and to try to identify models of social innovation
that could give us a different view of the world, and to give back.
I wrote a book, I wrote a few things
and then, anyway, you can find them searching online,
and the most important thing is to leave a sign of change.
My email is luciana724 (luciana 7 for 7 days and 24 for 24 hours)
@gmail.com.
(Applause)
I have only one minute.
Naturally, I can't not have you see a few of our products.
And thus I leave you with a small catalogue of products.
(Music)
[Made in Carcere We recycle lives]
(Applause)
Thank you!
(Applause)