Together to change the rules
During Fascism in Italy, the regime approved laws aimed at defending race and increasing birth rates.
This was mainly achieved with art. 553 of the Penal Code that banned both propaganda and the personal use of any contraceptives.
On 10th October 1953, the AIED (“Italian Association for Demographic Education”) was founded, with the purpose of repealing the aforementioned law and spreading the concept of free and responsible procreation.
In March 1971, the law was abrogated by the Italian Constitutional Court.
From then on, AIED has been highly committed to opening family counselling facilities all over Italy and spreading the concepts of birth control, sexual awareness and prevention.
In the meantime, however, many other social issues, such as violence against women, bullying and cyber-bullying, gender inequality, etc. have arisen and quickly spread. Owing to these developments, “AIED Rome” has deemed it necessary to respond and find new ways of intervening. Innovation, both technological and strategic, has been considered one of the most relevant areas to work on, so in 2010 AIED turned to Cocoon Projects and started a project based on evolution, which is still ongoing.
This collaboration has proved profitable from the beginning, as the two entities were very much alike and the desire to create value and bring about real changes in society guided them.
As a result, a brand new website came to life, based on the needs of its internal staff and patients. Social media and web campaigns, along with cultural initiatives, aimed at involving young people directly, were launched, addressing topics relevant to AIED.
Since 2013, in fact, AIED and Cocoon Projects together have promoted various innovation contests, facing issues worthy of attention each year.
The core value has always been to listen to young people’s point of view and allow them to have their say on topics they normally wouldn’t get the chance to discuss. Young people can teach us a lot and excluding them from matters that are dealt with every day is a mistake.
That’s why contests have always called for feasible proposals, that could have a tangible impact on reality. The challenges launched so far have been related to #NoViolenza #Donne (#NoViolence #Women) in 2013, #Giovani #LiberiDiAmare (#YoungPeople #FreetoLove) in 2014, #diversieinsieme (#differentandtogether) in 2015, #Nobullismo (#NoBullying) in 2016 and #costruireilfuturo (#BuildtheFuture) in 2017.
Moreover, AIED Rome has felt the need to innovate the family counselling facilities, both technologically speaking and service-wise, to be on par with private clinics. It has done so by creating a restricted online area for medical reports. This is an important tool to make access to medical reports easier and cope with the constantly new needs of patients.
For many years, AIED Rome has been working within schools and with young people, helping with sexual education for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, respect for diversity and, in recent years, bullying and cyberbullying, too. For this specific reason, in November 2017, AIED Rome published an educational guidebook for parents, teachers and students, called: “Bulli e cyberbulli: ora basta!” (“Bullies and cyber-bullies, that’s enough!”). The guidebook, put together with the aid of experts in different fields, has been requested and is still used by a huge amount of Italian schools, arousing discussions and debates and spreading knowledge and awareness of the phenomenon.
2018 has just begun and there are already a lot of initiatives that AIED Rome can’t wait to work on, certain that Cocoon projects will always be by its side.
This article was first published in our Cocooners N° 4
