Who we are

Here you can see a part of our social entrepreneurial community, of our experts and hoteliers.

We all are social entrepreneurs: we know what a social cooperative is and how to manage it, what exclusion/inclusion means, we are familiar with disabilitation, drug addiction, mental illness, some of us have great knowledge in the hotel business and we all are experts in welcoming diversity. There are cleaning workers, cooks, receptionists, architects, writers, barkeepers, trainers, accountancy and business plan experts and many more talents.

Orietta Polizzy – lives in Italy – Trieste and is the Chairperson and general manager of the social cooperative Il Posto delle Fragole. Her long experience as a cooperator from the bottom up is the most precious capital of Le Mat. She speaks Italian and English.

Pernilla Svebo Lindgren - lives in Sweden in Göteborg, is a professional social worker and acts as a social entrepreneur since many years. She developed many social co-operatives supporting people to exit prisons and dependencies and to start their own life and business. She is president of a consortium of social coops called Vägen Ut! Kooperativen. She speaks English and Swedish and likes travelling.

Renate Goergen – lives in Italy in Rome and is a social cooperative developer. Many years ago she started with one of the first Italian Social cooperative when she was a psychiatric nurse working with the team of Franco Basaglia in Trieste. She cooperated with the ILO and in many European and extra European countries with other development agencies. She speaks Italian, German, French and English.

Sven Bartilsson – lives in Sweden in Göteborg and is a co-operative supporter managing a cooperative support agency called Coompanion. He is quite well known all over Europe because of his engagement in cooperative development for many years. Speaks English, Swedish and French.




Sonia Sorci - is the President o the social cooperative called La Tana libera tutti. The cooperative manages a Hostel in Perugia in Central Italy. Sonia experimented all the difficulties of the start-up and management of a Hostel and she likes to trasfer her experience. She speaks Italian and a quite perfect English.


Veronica Hoijer - she lives in Sweden in Karlstad and is an instructor in a social cooperative, Solakoop. She has been there since it started 2004 and it is a place for persons that suffers of mental illness. In the summer of 2005 they opened a café in their garden. In the autumn they opened up three rooms for guests as a Bed & Breakfast. Her part in this cooperative is to support people to manage themselves, during the day at work and to take more responsibility as a member of the cooperative. Earlier she worked as a social worker in local government and as assistant nurse in the psychiatry. Speaks English and Swedish.

Teresa Bandelli – is a Hotel director in Trieste www.tritonehotel.org and obviously a social entrepreneur and a member of a social cooperative. She likes difficult people as guests and is able to really welcome them. She speaks Spanish, English, French and Italian and likes to travel.

Daniel Lindgren - lives in Sweden in Göteborg, is a social entrepreneur since many years. He analyses business ideas and develops social cooperatives. He is development manager in a consortium of social coops called Vägen ut! kooperativen. He speaks English, German and Swedish and is a Petrolhead.




Silvia Toschi – lives in Italy, Rome. She is an expert in tourism and likes to help people to write their own business plan. She speaks English, Italian, and a little Spanish and likes to travel.

Saverio Ciaccio – he is an architect and lives in Italy - Rome. He likes to help people to restore their houses, hotels, bars or restaurants, their environment as they would like it. Participated planning is his absolute passion. Speaks Italian.






Giancarlo De Franceschi – is an extraordinary cook, a very good receptionist. He also has many other talents and thousand of hidden virtuous as he seems to be the best father we ever met. He speaks a very good German and English, French and Italian and lives in Trieste but is able to live everywhere.

Pär Olofsson – lives in Göteborg, is cooperative developer and expert in supporting entrepeneurial groups. Speaks English and French.

There are many other Le Mat experts you can meet everywhere in Europe. For more information contact renate@lemat.coop