The context
The RELIVE Association (Relazioni Libere dalla Violenza – Relationships Free from Violence) was established in 2014 at the initiative of nine Italian organisations among the first to work with perpetrators of violence in intimate relationships. Since its inception, RELIVE has taken on as its core mission the promotion of a culture of male accountability in relation to gender-based violence, by creating a shared space for dialogue, training, and professional development among organisations involved in accountability programmes for men.
Today, RELIVE operates as a dynamic network bringing together around 45 affiliated Centres for Men Who Use Violence (CUAV), distributed across the entire country. The Centres within the network share a common approach based on the recognition of male violence against women as a structural phenomenon, to be addressed through interventions focused on perpetrator accountability and the protection of victims. RELIVE represents the main, and only, national reference network in Italy for organisations working with perpetrators of abuse, fostering the achievement of high standards of quality and methodological consistency in interventions.
The project
Each year, RELIVE organises a two-day in-person residential event aimed at practitioners from the Centres that are members of the network, with the goal of fostering peer exchange and building shared know-how and a common working methodology. Each residential event also provides 16 hours of certified and officially recognised training for individual participants, a fundamental training requirement that CUAVs are required to meet in order to comply with the current regulations governing entities with this legal status. In the absence of this annual event, some affiliated CUAVs would risk failing to meet this requirement due to a lack of access to other comparable training opportunities.
In recent years, the RELIVE network has experienced exponential growth in the number of member organisations and, as a result, the free access to this strategically important moment for the membership base had come under threat. Thanks to the contribution allocated by Fondazione Marcegaglia, however, 22 practitioners from CUAVs affiliated with RELIVE will be able to participate free of charge in the residential meetings and related training sessions during the 2026–2027 biennium, ensuring continuity for an essential pillar underpinning the quality and methodological coherence of the interventions carried out by the members of the network.
