“Philanthropy has a vital role in these challenging times”

Cristina Barbetta

Interview with Delphine Moralis, who has been appointed Chief Executive of the EFC- European Foundation Centre, a Brussels-based organisation made up of more than 240 of the most important international philanthropic institutions. The EFC’s first female CEO, Moralis has several years of international experience in building and leading pan-European associations and organisations. She has spoken to Vita International about the role of philanthropy and of the EFC in these crucial times

The social enterprise growing mushrooms from coffee grounds

Cristina Barbetta

In Brussels a social enterprise, called Permafungi, has implemented an innovative method to produce mushrooms. All the process, from production to distribution, is sustainable: from collection of waste to distribution of the product by bike, from the search for new organic materials, to the employment of low skilled people.

Is sharing mobility the future?

Monica Straniero

Vita International posed the question to Veronica Aneris, Senior policy officer at Transport & Environment (T&E), Europe's leading NGO campaigning for cleaner transport.

Bernardo Bini Smaghi: the Italian Development Cooperation secures funding

Joshua Massarenti

The head of Management and Support of Development Policies Department at Cassa depositi e Prestiti S.p.A. (CDO) outlines his plans for the Italian public-sector financial institution and the historic step which is set to bring the CDP into the world of Italian development aid and international cooperation.

Ken Loach:The European Union is a neo-liberal project

Monica Straniero

Since the 1960s, Ken Loach has been known for his hard-hitting social dramas exploring issues such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment and exploitation. The acclaimed film director and passionate socialist arrived yesterday in Rome to promote I Daniel Blake, which won the Palme d’Or at last month’s Cannes film festival.

Bernd Nilles: “North and South are no longer divided, but unified in facing the same problems”

Joshua Massarenti

CIDSE’s Secretary General talks to Vita International about the most pressing global challenges facing us today. “Agenda 2030 and the SDGs can de facto lead to a kind of systemic change to our economic model and behaviors.“We need courageous politicians who push their governments to take bold decisions and people who take their lives into their own hands and make changes now" he says.

Violence, rape, and forced marriage: inside the lives of female refugees

Kimberley Evans

"I've been a refugee since the day I was born" begins Mina Jaf, female refugee rights activist and this year's Women Refugee Commission Voice of Courage 2016 award winner. Speaking to Vita International, she describes what she saw inside the closed government camps in Greece. Gender based violence, forced marriages, rape, and child kidnapping. "It's so much worse now than when I was a child." Now she is starting her own NGO called Women Refugee Route, which focuses on providing female interpreters for women on the migration route. "I saw it first with my mother, and then with the thousands of women I met in Iraq and Greece that it would be easier for them to explain themselves in their own language," she says.

Gianni Pittella: "Europe needs to change its strategy in Africa"

Joshua Massarenti

Since assuming leadership of the European Socialist and Democrats Group (S&D) in the European Parliament, Gianni Pittella has committed to make Africa "an absolute priority of our group". Today the S&D Group president will be inaugurating the launch of the Africa Week: an initiative of the S&D - of which Vita international is a media partner. From 5-11 April, experts, deputies, civil society leaders, Europeans and above all Africans will be discussing the future of the continent.

Libya, not lost in transition

Martino Pillitteri

Farida El Allagi, Libyan Ambassador at the European Union, acknowledges to Vita international how her country and the Arab world are progressing despite the internal deterrents and the interferences from abroad.