Italy

Marco Polo System has been either partner or Lead Partner or technical / knowledge provider in more than 50 projects financed from EU funding programmes, such as Interreg Central Europe, IPA Adriatic, South East Europe, Culture 2000, MED or from Veneto Region funds. Networking, EU planning , Cultural Heritage valorisation, youth involvement and communication are the main fields in which we act. MPS also deals with publishing activity, on themes like history research of Veneto area, cultural heritage promotions linked to Venetian footprints in Euro-Mediterranean  basin. Marco Polo System is also Europa Nostra associate member, member of “AMMM – Association of Mediterranean Maritime Museums”, founder and manager of the technical governance in “Lepanto Network – Sulle Rotte di Lepanto”, founder and general manager of “European Silk Road – Marco Polo Routes”, founder of the Euro-mediterranean network for the valorisation of Fortified Heritage "Forts that bind - FARO for Forts".

Marea would like to work out a new feminist web radio project (starting with a course for women radio journalists and speakers) and a web site with news and reportages on political, social, cultural issues focussing on women living in the Mediterranean area and in the rest of the world. Marea will work on the issue of secularism at the European Feminist Forum which will be held in 2008 and will organize an international meeting in Italy inviting the writer Irshad Manji from Canada, who is an activist against fundamentalism.

As contractor I am collaborating in this moment on a 3 years European project titled WeLearn project with the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, on a project about universities' internationalizazion strategies and practices and the development of "neighbourliness" skills (which integrate intercultural and global citizens skills) through the development of training toolkits.
I am also involved as trainer and reseacher on a 3 years project titled DIMICOME with ISMU, aimed at migrants working integration; in this project I mapped some Italian companies who committed themselves with migrants integration, and through the involvement of different stakeholders I am creating tools such as social workers' guidelines, migrants' competences model and training activity for companies, in order to facilitate the working integration process.
I am the co-ordinator of the Feeling Italian project, developed by SIETAR Italia, a project that aim to explore the concept of Italian identity and more braodly about the concept of cultural identity, and to develop a sense of global citizenship. 

Besides the principal mission of the "dialogue between societies and cultures" the following are thematic areas for the operations of MdM:
1. Environment and Common Resurces of the Mediterranean: dedicated to defending those environmental resources threatened by pollution: sea, soil, ionosphere, flora and biodiversity. Defines criteria of protection and sustainable exploitation and seeks to ensure their application throughout the Euromediterranean.
2. Ethics and safeguarding of mental and physical health: dedicated to harmonising standards of health care throughout the Euromediterranean region, while recognising and respecting local ethics and concepts of mental and physical well-being. Defines and implements programmes of distribution of health services corresponding to the best practices recognised by the respective communities.
3. Psycho-social well-being and relations among individuals, families and groups: dedicated to studying relations at the micro-social level to promote and support initiatives which favour the quality of life in local communities and migrant groups. Activates projects enhancing relations and solidarity between genders, within the family and in social groupings, to move beyond a view of the individual as autonomous and unrelated and to build democracy and social participation.
4. Methodologies and programmes for urban development: dedicated to reinforcing local authorities, both by studying and generalising appropriate methodologies of participatory democracy and by designing and implementing programmes of infrastructural reinforcement and better management of public and local utilities. Defines methodologies of cooperative and partnership exhanges of professionalism and facilities, both in investment and management phases, in order to minimise costs. Defines benchmark standards for private operators.
5. Qualifying the migratory flow and social policies combating emargination: dedicated to promoting professional qualification of the migratory population, fostering training, entrepreneurial promotion, and introduction of forms of international economic partnership. Studies models of urban and rural settlement of the migratory population which respect ethics and lead to inter-cultural integration. Studies the juridical and administrative measures required to foster integration and promote throughput of income generated by migration.

In order to reach its aims, Me.Dia.T.E. organizes and participates in meetings and seminars which main objectives are the empowerment of civil society’s role as well as the promotion of social and cultural development and the decentralized cooperation in the Mediterranean Countries. The concrete participation and involvement of all its members, due to the different specializations and field of action of each of them, can assure a wide dissemination of all the activities and the proposals concerning the association’s aims. Since it was established in December 2004, Me.Dia.T.E. has organized some meetings and seminaries at international level, involving all its associates and offering to other associations too the possibility of attending them. After the first meeting in Malta in December 2004, a series of international seminaries and thematic workshops focused on the theme “Empowering instruments for local communities in the Mediterranean Area”.

Kmetro0.it
Il nostro progetto mira a rafforzare l’identità del nostro Continente e delle Sue Regioni, Province e Comuni, promuovendone allo stesso tempo le risorse e l’immagine a 360°, grazie alla nostra Rivista Kmetro0 e al suo Portale Europeo multilingua.
Si tratta di uno strumento innovativo che permette di interagire con i lettori e con i visitatori di tutto il mondo, per offrire ai fruitori della nostra gamma di servizi la più capillare ed ampia visibilità, su scala nazionale, comunitaria e mondiale.

- Increasing the number of arabic books in Milano's libraries and cataloguing of arabic titles translitterated in latin letters
- EU exchanges about intercultural dialogue (promoters and participants)
- Creation of web sites in arabic and italian for language/cultural learning through medias
- Creation of an italian-arabic free press about immigration topics and with the involvement of mediterranean institutions, boards, companies, associations, journalists, students...

Our activities, primarly targeted to youth from 15 to 30, include: 1) the support of young individuals and groups in the development of cultural projects, especially those that involve the use of arts and the media to build campaigns of social communication; 2) cultural events presenting artistic and multimedia projects by youth, especially those aimed at a socially aware communication; 3) courses and workshops using arts and the media as expressive means; 4) the development of a participated mediateque on youth arts and media, as well as on social and geopolitical issues 5) a desk for the search of funding, training and networking opportunities for youth-led cultural projects at a local and an international level.

The spread of cultural activities: concerts, plays, books, conferences, seminars, exhibitions and so on. taking place in all countries of the Mediterranean. Besides the dissemination of culture and information for newspapers of all countries using the media reviews of the various newspapers, the spread of job opportunities for young people and businesses operating in the Mediterranean with the section International Economics. But above all information on the situation of some critical situations for human rights in some Mediterranean countries, such as advertising the project Mediterraid.

L'organizzazione porta avanti diversi progetti miranti alla costruzione di una cultura inclusiva volte a diminuire le differenze di genere e differenze sociali, soprattutto nelle aree più svantaggiate del paese.