Our recent visit to ACB Social Inclusion in Arezzo, this past week, provided remarkable insights into how organizations can transform challenges into innovation. Speaking with Paola Miraglia, the director of ACB Social Inclusion, I gained a deeper understanding of how their responsive approach to failure has shaped their success in supporting migrant communities.

Recognizing Systemic Exploitation

One significant failure ACB initially faced was not recognizing the systematic exploitation of migrants arriving in Arezzo. “At first, we didn’t even understand the structure,” Paola admitted during our conversation. Migrants were arriving after paying enormous sums to cross the Mediterranean, only to be caught in exploitative situations.

“They are offered a package of everything: Sleep, food, and work,” Paola explained. “Only that, obviously, it means working 14 hours without holidays, maybe with a contract for only two hours.” What appeared as employment opportunities were actually systems of exploitation.

The organization’s initial failure to identify this pattern meant they weren’t addressing their clients’ real needs. However, this realization catalyzed meaningful change.

Transforming Failure into Innovation

What stands out about ACB’s approach is how they transformed this failure into innovation. “Now we’ve retrained our staff to recognize it. Our entire intake process changed,” Paola explained. This adaptation demonstrated remarkable organizational flexibility—they rebuilt their approach from the ground up to better serve the people they were committed to helping.

Community-Based Leadership

ACB’s approach to overcoming challenges includes their community-based leadership model. The organization operates with members from various migrant communities, with the president himself being from Bangladesh.

As Ursula helped explain: “Over the years he has been able to build a really sort of strong presence in the local area. So everybody, all of the services know him, all of the people within the different immigrant communities sort of know who he is.”

This leadership structure emerged as a direct response to communication failures. ACB recognized that migrants were hesitant to share their experiences with Italian staff members. By having leadership representation from the migrant communities themselves, they created a more trusting environment.

“That helps people, it helps them feel more protected so that they can actually speak out because they see in him someone who’s a sort of guarantee of protection in some way,” our interpreter noted. What began as a communication challenge transformed into one of the organization’s greatest strengths.

QR codes at ACB that help with the language barrier

Legal Assistance: Filling the Gap

ACB’s founding was itself a response to a systemic failure within Italian society. When asked about the organization’s origins, Paola’s immediate response was telling: “Italy is a country where gap is the normality, okay? Gap in every place, in every field.”

She explained that the initial problem was the complexity of Italian law: “There are a lot of laws… sometimes old, new, and the old, and the new are active. But in contrast, then it’s very, very difficult, this country.”

For migrants arriving without knowledge of Italian legal systems, this complexity presented an insurmountable barrier. “People coming here, migrants, can’t understand Italian law and all the system is very, very difficult for them,” Paola explained.

ACB’s response was to develop specialized legal assistance tailored specifically to migrants’ needs—turning a societal failure into an opportunity to provide essential services.

COVID-19: Crisis Response

The COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges. ACB leveraged a project they had received funding for through the local municipality, transforming it to address emerging needs.

They coordinated with a restaurant supply company facing significant losses due to restaurant closures: “They came up with this idea kind of all together, by which they would get orders from all of the different families that needed food at that time,” our interpreter explained.

This creative solution created a “circular sort of economy that really worked well,” turning potential failure into community success. Beyond practical benefits, this approach fostered connection during isolation: “There was sort of time through the telephone calls to also kind of talk to people and find out how everyone was doing.”

Personal Growth Through Organizational Evolution

Paola shared her personal journey within the organization: “At the beginning I prefer to stay at the desk to meet people. But in a moment I realized that my role is very important to organize other people.”

This transition wasn’t easy initially: “I was not so happy about this at the beginning.” However, she came to understand the necessity of evolving roles: “Now I understand it’s not possible to stay all the day or all the life in the same role.”

As our interpreter explained, this shift came partly from recognizing frontline work’s emotional toll: “After several years, it can become very hard, listening to those stories that obviously are all really painful and difficult emotionally.” By moving to an organizational role with more emotional distance, Paola found she could be more effective in coordinating assistance.

ACB working with local communities and migrants.

Balancing Growth with Local Impact

When asked about plans for growth, Paola acknowledged the tension between expansion and maintaining local impact: “It’s difficult not to be. If you want to go home, you have to be bigger. And it’s necessary to survive.”

However, she expressed concern about losing their local focus: “In my opinion, the perfect dimension is local dimension. Because you can have an impact. You can register, you can see.”

Conclusion

ACB Social Inclusion demonstrates that responding effectively to failure isn’t about avoiding mistakes—it’s about transforming challenges into opportunities for growth. By continually adapting their approach, they’ve created a model that effectively addresses the complex needs of migrant communities in Arezzo. Their willingness to recognize shortcomings, retrain staff, rebuild processes, and remain connected to the communities they serve offers valuable lessons for organizations working in social services.

My classmates and Paola Miraglia