Elena de Filippo

What are the challenges and advantages you have encountered along the way?

The main challenge was perhaps to be autonomous and independent (even on a personal level), to make the cooperative autonomous, but at the same time committed. Obviously on several occasions we paid a price for this autonomy of ours, but overall it was worth it, it was also my/our strength. More generally, almost all the services we have created have represented a challenge because they have often been innovative services: such as talking about cultural mediation in the nineties, or bringing unaccompanied foreign minors into reception). The challenge was to involve the public, we grasped needs (action research helped us so much ) that the local authority did not see. The advantage has always been to see things before others, read the territory, the changes.

What are the historical and contemporary figures who have inspired the most in the fight for rights and equality?

I was a teenager in the seventies and attended university in the early eighties and my activism, my political commitment started in those years. The historical figures of reference were those of that student generation: from classics like Marx, Rosa Luxberg, Gramsci, heroes like Che Guevara, Mandela, Martin Luther King - writers like Simone de Beauvoir, Angela Davis, and then I would say Basaglia, Margherita Hack, Gianni Rodari, Fabrizio De Andre, Franca Rame, ... After her university years and therefore after the battles over the right to education and closeness to the workers' movement, my activism has focused above all on the rights of the most fragile people, including migrants. In the mid-eighties I participated in the first national survey on migration, being part (as a student for my degree thesis) of the Campania research group coordinated by Enrico Pugliese Francesco Calvanese. This experience was very formative both professionally and because of the commitment that will then follow. Knowledge of the living conditions of migrant women who worked as domestic helpers and the exploitative condition of labourers in the Agro-Aversa area were decisive for me. The sacrifices of women, the violence they often suffered from employers or compatriots, the sacrifice they made for their children, combined (in the case of Eritreans for example) with the struggles for liberation or self-determination of their own people, but also the difficulties in asserting the most basic rights such as the right to health or study. In the mid-80s I met Dedalus, a study and research centre, and I joined it with some fellow students. I took advantage of the first research experience I had participated in and participated in so many immigration surveys and studies. After the death of Jerry Maslow and the great anti-racist demonstration in October 1989 I took an active part in the birth of the anti-racist movement in Campania (with the Antiracist Forum) and the Antiracist Network. A very important season of the movement which carried out battles on rights but also a true and constructive discussion between associations, trade unions, different grassroots organisations, secular or religious realities, structured or not, united and in solidarity in a common objective. Through the anti-racist movement I met, among many, Giacomo and Vittoria at a local level, Andrea at a national level (who with Dino Frisullo, Udo Enwereuzor, Anna Maria Rivera was spokesperson for the anti-racist network). With them and with Dina, whom we met during our university years, we decided to bring our political, anti-racist and rights commitment to our work and so they became members of Dedalus. And with them a new page of the cooperative was born, until those years engaged above all in research, consultancy and training activities, it was in some ways little more than an associated studio, with professionalism and skills but in those years the political commitment brought him outside the cooperative. In those years, however (about 30 years ago) with the new members we brought our commitment within the Cooperative, through the management and promotion of services, we became a social cooperative. We also bring within the cooperative the experiences of the many entities encountered with the anti-racist network around Italy; action research remains an important methodology of ours that will give us the push to design services, to understand the needs of the territories. Thus we begin to design and manage services for trafficked women, domestic helpers in difficulty, unaccompanied foreign minors, newly arrived foreign students to train the first cultural mediators. For many years the cooperative then managed services, dedicating itself to the most fragile people, to breaking down obstacles to combat inequalities until, just over 10 years ago, we understood that to protect rights it was essential to dialogue even with the least fragile people. So we started new challenges, addressed issues such as social and urban regeneration. In the years in which politics took to the streets to fuel or create conflict between the most desperate people and the most frightened citizens, we responded by creating opportunities for dialogue and meeting in an intercultural centre. And we did it in the area with the highest concentration of citizens and foreign families in the city of Naples; we did it through art, offering opportunities for dialogue. This was a complicated moment within the cooperative but one which then gave us so much satisfaction, in fact some of the colleagues saw it as a betrayal not to devote ourselves exclusively to fragility and rights. But with discussion and dialogue within us too we have also carried forward this challenge and time has proven us right.

What are the specific challenges for immigrant and refugee women in Naples?

I don't know if we can talk about challenges, but the rights of immigrant women are still greatly violated, little guaranteed by the many obstacles encountered in everyday life. Just to give a few examples the difficulty of raising a child in a country where services are still very scarce (for all women) and what's more, you are in the absence of a family network, where working is necessary to raise your children here, but also to send to the family of origin (or to the children remaining in the country) the difficulty of asserting skills or qualifications not only from a formal point of view, but also to be able to carry out a less deskilled job (the segregation is strong employment for immigrant women regardless of qualifications, skills, experiences and aspirations are largely still today demoted and underqualified). For the new generations, having their right to citizenship recognized. And still making the two cultures coexist in contexts where prejudice and stereotypes still weigh heavily. Another challenge is to free oneself from the burden of migration (from a moral debt to the family remaining in the country of origin) which is often decisive in the (non)choices, while not breaking relationships. Finding a balance between being here, living your life here, choosing for yourself and the affections and needs of your families of origin.

What are the aspects that motivate you the most?

I find the greatest motivation in the promotion and protection of the rights of fragile people, the breaking down of those barriers that hinder access to rights, the fight against discrimination and the fight against prejudices. I am convinced that living in a better world, with less injustice, makes everyone feel better.

What advice would you give to young people who want to start engaging in this field?

Have a healthy curiosity, know without preconceptions, don't be afraid to compare yourself and always question yourself a little’ when comparing yourself with others. Being protagonists, acting, not just observing. Take initiative, even in a small way. Commitment does not arise from waiting, but from participation even though it often takes time to see the results of one's commitment.

What are the future goals?

In reference to my commitment to Dedalus, I believe there are mainly two. The first, I have been trying to carry it forward for a few years now, is to grow a new generation of members who are able to carry on the work of the cooperative. A generation that knows how to combine skills and commitment, that does not give up, or rather that claims the political value of social work by putting itself at stake in some way, not by delegating but with protagonism. The other is to consolidate the work carried out so far, find new opportunities and strategies to continue, even in this increasingly complex context, to be innovative but faithful to our mission.

How can the issues of equality and rights in schools be promoted with greater sensitivity?

Bringing different experiences, promoting comparison. It is probably necessary to start from listening, discussion and active participation. Workshop activities, testimonials and concrete projects help to make these themes alive and close to boys and girls. But it is important to also involve families, use accessible language and create even informal moments to open spaces for dialogue for conscious and inclusive citizenship.

How did you manage the emotional load that activism often entails?

I am a very rational person, it is not a choice but it is my way of being. I mostly experienced emotions (both in good times and in non-good times), in a reserved way, without expressing them too much. This helped me maintain clarity (in difficult moments), but perhaps this was also my limit, it also closed some possibilities for me. Those who know me well, however, were able to read me anyway and, discreetly, also shared with me the emotional weight of this journey.