Mobile Outreach Units Day
Working together to support people facing extreme hardshipEvery week in Milan, our Friends on the Streets Street Unit supports people experiencing homelessness or financial hardship and the animals who share their lives. The project is part of a citywide support network for people facing severe social exclusion, coordinated by the Italian Red Cross and bringing together organizations with different areas of expertise and complementary forms of support.
The fifth Mobile Outreach Units Day, held at the Centro Sammartini on 26 September, provided an important opportunity to strengthen these connections and bring organizations together to share their experiences, discuss the challenges they encounter, and exchange practical tools developed through their work in the community.
The event was attended by Silvia Bartoli, Project Manager for Friends on the Streets, and Monica Spoladore, Coordinator of the Milan Street Unit, together with some of the volunteers who accompany the team on its weekly outreach visits
The day brought together volunteers and outreach workers from Mobile Units across Milan to share experiences and discuss the challenges they encounter in their work. Through workshops and roundtable discussions, participants explored different aspects of providing support – from understanding people’s needs and identifying the resources available to recognizing the limits of what individual services can provide.
Save the Dogs brought an important additional perspective to the discussion: the bond that exists between people in situations of hardship and their pets. This is something our Friends on the Streets team encounters every day and one that requires us to consider the animal’s well-being alongside the circumstances and needs of the person who share their lives.
For many of the people we meet on the streets, their relationship with their animal represents a very important part of their lives. That is why Friends on the Streets works to protect the well-being of both, seeking solutions that take into account and respond to the needs of each.
The Mobile Outreach Units Day gave us the opportunity to share this experience with other organizations in the network and strengthen the collaboration that is so important to our daily work in supporting people facing extreme social exclusion in Milan.
The event highlighted once again the value of bringing together different areas of expertise to address complex situations and develop more coordinated support across the city.
