PAOLA
ANNA: What are the most important values for you in your relationships with other human beings?
PAOLA: Suspending judgment and respect, qualities that are deeply tied to my work.
A: What do you do for work?
P: I work as an educator at the Mariuccia Asylum Foundation, a mother-child community. At the moment, we have four women with their children staying with us.
A: How did you decide to become a community educator?
P: Well, it wasn’t easy at first to accept that I wanted to work in education. But I was certainly interested in it, and I realized early on that it was something I was naturally good at. The shifts are 24 hours long, and they haven’t always aligned with my life stages, for example, when I became a mother, I changed jobs. But in the end, I always found myself coming back to this work—it’s just a part of who I am.
A: And does it align with your life now?
P: Right now, I feel a bit afraid, I feel the need to change and grow. I’d like to work in HR for a new service they’re opening—a center for survivors of violence. I want to be the intermediary between these women and the outside world, a world that, for one reason or another, they’ve never experienced peacefully.
A: I imagine it must be difficult to maintain distance and authority during conflicts within the community.
P: Yes, let’s say that I’m not Paola in there. The relationship isn’t symmetrical, if someone yells in my face, I obviously can’t respond. The first rule is to address everything privately, never in front of the children, we’re in a place that’s meant to protect the children, first and foremost. Living in a community is tough, but I make it clear that I’m not the cause of their hardships. I’m there to work for them, not against them, that’s something I established right away.
A: How do you manage your emotions instead?
P: A key moment for me is with my colleagues, both when we share updates and during team meetings. The relationship between us needs to be solid, and we share the struggles together. For example, the worst part of our work is when we have to separate a mother from her child. The pain these children feel is unbearable, and in those moments, we support each other.
A: What would you change about Italy today, especially in relation to your work?
P: In this country, we have a political class worried that Italians are going extinct, yet they fail to see that there are so many children living in Italy who aren’t legally recognized as Italian citizens. These kids speak Italian, go to Italian schools, and eat Italian food every day. Why are we afraid to acknowledge their rights?
There are now two types of childhoods in Italy: one that’s hyper-protected and completely stripped of responsibility, and another that’s unrecognized altogether.
A: What does it mean to you to be a woman in Italy?
P: Unfortunately, I still believe it’s a disadvantage, especially in the workplace. But I’d like to stop thinking that way, because it perpetuates a cultural narrative. The issue of gender roles in our society is incredibly difficult to dismantle, perhaps I even chose my job because it’s a caregiving role, seen as a traditionally feminine occupation…
Abandoning this narrative is everyone’s responsibility. Something that really saddens me is that most organizations working to protect women, even in emergencies, are still bound by the Istanbul Convention of 1972. This convention states that no male staff can be present in anti-violence centers, as if men were the ultimate enemy, this perpetuates fear, sets limits, and creates completely wrong images of both men and women.