GERARDO MAZZELLA

 Minerva Soc. Coop. is a non for profit cooperative which was initially created in 1984 by the Association of Women’s Club as a publishing house to give a voice to women and more vulnerable segments of the society through a monthly journal by the same name distributed on national newsstands and by subscription.

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Over the years Minerva has expanded its mission to include projects aimed at:

promoting studies, seminars, conferences and cultural, communication and training initiatives on themes of social, economic, political and institutional interest, concerning the condition of women, children and distressed categories both in Italy and Europe and internationally;

researching and supplying technical assistance, operational support and feasibility studies in social, economic, political and institutional contexts on the condition of women in both Italy and Europe and internationally, for use by public administrations, private facilities and international bodies;

publishing initiatives in print, electronic and multimedia formats.

Since the 1990s Minerva has carried out activities involving professional training in publishing and journalism, among which the “Journalism course for women in Southern Italy”, sponsored and funded by the Ministry of Labour.

In 2010 Minerva was awarded a contract for a publishing project handling the information and communication of initiatives sponsored by the Assessorato all’Agricoltura (Agriculture Bureau) of the Region of Lazio (PSR) through the Regional Agency for Agricultural Development and Innovation of Lazio (ARSIAL). The project made use of European funding and included the production of publications and the organisation of promotional initiatives and technical organizational means necessary for informing women and young people of the opportunities offered by the PSR for 2007-2013. The project was completed in July 2013 (see below under Communication activities).

 

Awards

For its cultural and journalistic activities, Minerva Soc. Coop. received the “Premio Donna città di Roma” (Woman’s Award of the City of Rome) in 1986, and the “Premio della Cultura” (Culture Award) of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

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Communication activities

After being awarded a tender, between July 2010 and July 2013 MINERVA carried out a publishing and events management project concerning the initiatives promoted by the Agricultural Department of the Lazio Region within the context of the 2007-2013 Regional Rural Development Plan. The commissioning body was ARSIAL – Agenzia Regionale per lo Sviluppo e l’Innovazione dell’Agricoltura del Lazio (Regional Agency for Agricultural Development and Innovation). The project, which was financed by EU funds, included the following activities:

writing, producing and printing publications (35,000 copies of each publication), as well as distributing them in the region;

organizing workshops, subject-specific conferences, press conferences and other promotional events aimed at informing women and young people about the opportunities offered by the 2007-2013 Regional Rural Development Plan. Promotional and advertising materials Minerva has produced and produces (i.e. designs, writes and prints) brochures, agendas, advertising and promotional materials for various public and private clients.

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Selected Cultural Events

MINERVA AWARD

The award has run for XXVII years (the last edition was held in November 2016). In 2009, it was renamed as the Minerva Anna Maria Mammoliti Award , in memory of its founder. It is the first Italian award focused on women engaged in the fight against social marginalization and includes a men’s category. Over the years, the following personalities have been jury members: Susanna Agnelli, Marisa Bellisario, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Sandro Curzi, Alain Elkann, Franco Frattini, Renato Guttuso, Margherita Hack, Gianni Letta, Simonetta Matone, Mimma Mondadori, Andrea Monorchio, Simone Ovart, Carla Rabitti Bedogni, Eugenio Santoro, Annamaria Tarantola, Giglia Tedesco, Valeria Termini, Daniela Paola Viglione, Lina Wertmuller. There have been hundreds of award recipients, including Sheikha Lubna Al-Kasimi, Safia Al Souhail, Lucia Annunziata, Elisabetta Belloni, Irina Bokova, Diana Bracco, Haleh Bridi, Piera Degli Esposti, Inge Feltrinelli, the Icelandic feminist movement Kvennalistinn, Nilde Iotti, Fawzia Koofi, Emma Marcegaglia, Lina Ben Mhenni, Laura Mirachian, Viktòria Mohàcsi, Barbara Spinelli, Livia Pomodoro, Anna Maria Tarantola, and Monica Vitti. In the men’s category, recipients have included Mario Monicelli, Sandro Pertini, Umberto Veronesi, Tibetan monks, and Eric Emmanuel Schmitt.

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Publishing activities

The magazine MINERVA – published monthly since 1983 and now in its 29th year of publication – deals with culture, economics, business, environmental issues, health, society, and foreign affairs. The magazine’s target audience is mainly medium- and higher-educated women, but recent years have seen an increase in male readers. Since 1996, the magazine has been granted the benefits provided for by law by the Publishing Department of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Until January 2013, Minerva had a circulation of more than 40,000 nationwide and was distributed in newsstands and by subscription, as well as to targeted European and international readers.

Due to drastic cuts in public funding to the publishing sector, the magazine – after 30 years of regular print issues – became an online publication in January 2013.

BOOKS

Selected titles:

– “I Dossier di Minerva”: 4 volumes on the presence of women in different disciplines and professions, from antiquity to the present day.

– “L’Intelligenza – Istruzioni e avvertenze per l’uso del cervello -“ (Intelligence – Instructions for the use of the brain) by the psychologist and psychotherapist Sabina Manes.

– “L’Irresistibile vento dell’ovest” (The irresistible wind of the West), a collection of political writings by Luigi Mazzella, Judge at the Italian Constitutional Court

– “Finanza etica e valore sociale” (Ethical finance and social values), an essay on ethics and finance by the sociologist Riccardo Severi

– “Giuliano Vassalli, le sue opinioni, la sua storia”, (The life and opinions of Giuliano Vassalli), conversations with Professor Vassalli, edited by Anna Maria Mammoliti, editor-inchief of Minerva.

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Training activities

The company has provided professional training in publishing and journalism since the Nineties.

Among the training courses it has organized, two are especially worthy of mention:

Corso Biennale di Giornalismo 1997- 1998: a two-year post-graduate course in journalism (720 hours of theory and practice) for ten women from central and southern Italy, financed by the Ministry of Labour in accordance with Law No. 125. A publication called ZIP NEWS was specifically created to give participants the opportunity of publishing the articles required to become a journalist in Italy.

II Corso di Giornalismo 2005-2006: second edition of the two-year course of journalism (480 hours of theory and practice); course coordinator: Anna Maria Mammoliti (editor-in-chief of Minerva). Teachers and lecturers included experienced journalists such as: Piero Mei (culture editor at the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero), Franco Cuozzo (Rai Tre), Gino Falleri (Vice-President of the Association of Journalists – Lazio and Molise regions), Pierluigi Severi (journalist and sociologist), Lucia Morselli (Sky), Marco Sassano (Riffeser group – newspapers), Mario Relandini (journalist and writer, former executive editor of the Italian newspaper l’Avanti!), Franco Scaglia (Rai), Piero Calabrese (editor-in-chief of the Italian magazine Panorama).

GERARDO MAZZELLA

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Other Activities

Countless activities have been promoted in the last 30 years by the Women’s Club and Minerva.

In particular, Minerva’s founder Anna Maria Mammoliti was often invited as a speaker at international conferences and other events held at universities in Europe and South America. For the sake of brevity, we will mention only a few.

1986, Brussels: a press conference during which Anna Maria Mammoliti and Beatrice Rangoni Machiavelli (President of the EU’s group “Various Interests”) presented a special issue of Minerva on women and employment in the European Community.