Challenging 'ndrangheta by creating
a legitimate and ethical economy.
GOEL was set up in 2003 as a community movement determined to challenge the mafia by creating a flourishing economy based on sustainable and ethical social enterprise.
Its network of co-operatives works across a wide range of economic sectors – including organic agriculture, health services, food distribution, hospitality, responsible tourism, eco-fashion, textiles and organic cosmetics.
Our Activities
GOEL Biodiversi Calabria has extraordinary microclimatic diversification and biodiversity. GOEL Biodiversi is an agro-industrial cluster that promotes an innovative agricultural economic model. The cluster consists of organic farms, processing laboratories and an applied scientific research center. It produces plant extracts and active ingredients for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic, agribusiness and phytotherapeutic sectors. GOEL Biodiversi enhances the “botanical garden” of Calabria by contributing to the agricultural renaissance and identity evolution of the region.
‘Responsible Tourism’ is a Tour Operator and Travel Agency and through its brand “I Viaggi del GOEL” proposes responsible and eco-tourism itineraries, offering authentic experiences to visitors who come into close contact with the territory and local people. To enhance the natural beauty and millenary history of Calabria, the Tour Operator offers nature, cultural and educational tourism proposals focusing on the themes of environmental sustainability, social inclusion and ethics: values and paths that produce change and social redemption. Moreover, being Eco-tourism intrinsically linked to Nature and Biodiversity, and being Calabria one of the European regions with the greatest biodiversity, “I viaggi del GOEL” invite travelers and visitors to know and experience Calabria in a new way, as the “Biodiversity Oasis in Europe”.
The GOEL label CANGIARI is a leader in textile manufacturing, hand woven fabrics, handicrafts and eco-fashion. Marginalised women workers are employed to revive the ancient tradition of Calabrian hand weaving. Leading-edge design and tailoring transform the cloth into haute couture. CANGIARI is now the pre-eminent eco-ethical high fashion brand in Italy, the only one completely organic.
CANGIARI web site CANGIARI Store
GOEL Bio includes organic farming and food production, processing and distribution as well as bio-cosmetics. GOEL Bio is part of the larger GOEL Biodiversi cluster, which brings together a number of actors to transform the extraordinary botanical biodiversity in Calabria into an agricultural competitive advantage.
GOEL Welfare runs a shelter and skills workshop for new migrants arriving every year in Calabria and prevents them falling into the hands of the mafia. Migrants are welcome in Calabria, which has been severely depopulated by emigration. It also works to support disabled people, orphans, abused children, troubled teenagers and people suffering from mental health problems.
Creating space where disadvantaged and marginalised groups can play a greater role in the Calabrian economy is a core value for the GOEL network.
All of GOEL’s member co-operatives stand as living social and economic models for how Calabria can build a legal and prosperous state free of mafia control.
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