InGalera is a very important project for the future of detainees.
Our experience in the Bollate Prison started in 2004, with Lucia Castellano, and later continued with Director Massimo Parisi and has brought our institution to great success and to many accomplishments.
An example of this is ABC Catering, a coop of professional cooks who, under President Silvia Polleri, offer high-level catering, guaranteed by a decade-long experience.Since always, 'Abc la sapienza in tavola’ has had the ambitious dream to open a restaurant with the contribution of prisoners in order to equip them, upon completion of their rehabilitation period, with a real and strong Curriculum, in the effort to eliminate the stigma attributed to incarceration. Likewise, PwC Italy, inspired by similar experiences developed abroad and recognising food as an important factor for the culture and growth of our country, has harboured for years the idea of creating a social restaurant, bringing to the table its expertise and financial resources. Finally, in 2013 PwC and ABC Catering met and, with the collaboration of other partners, planned and launched InGalera.
Francesco Ferrara, Partner of PwC Italy and Head of Corporate Responsibility comments on this partnership:“We feel particularly honoured to have contributed to this initiative since its conception, through the study of the Restaurant’s business plan. We have put our know-how at the service of a social enterprise (impresa sociale) and have actively engaged our most talented people in this project. Being an active part of the community in which we operate is the most profound meaning of our Corporate Responsibility and is aligned with the numerous projects of PwC both in Italy and in the world”.
Through the support of the Cariplo Foundation, the Italian Minister of Justice, the Paolo Frisi Hotel School, which was already present in 2012 with the jail section of its school, the Peppino Vismara Foundation, the InGalera Restaurant was inaugurated in the Bollate Jail, open to the outside clientele and managed by the coop in which the detainees work.