Friendly locales

The idea of promoting social exchange in public places was born during a conversation between a bank executive (Constance Berghinz) and a psychotherapist (Piera Serra), in September 2017. The executive reported how during lunch breaks she observed people in restaurants eating their lunch in silence: perhaps some of them would enjoy exchanging a greeting or a word with people nearby. Perhaps restaurants could have become hubs of social connections.

The psychotherapist was very impressed with the idea that any public venue could offer social exchanges.

The Lugano nonprofit association was immediately involved. Psychology and Psychotherapy Research Society, which conducted a study on attitudes toward table sharing in Ticino (interviews, focus groups, an online questionnaire, testing of existing shared tables).

Such "historic" Lugano restaurants as Olimpia in Piazza Riforma, Pestalozzi in Piazza Indipendenza, Oops Bar and Birreria Al Forte readily agreed to offer tables Hello Table, adopting our centerpiece:

A number of computer science students from the Swiss Italian University built a website for free. Several professionals such as designers, project managers, event promoters also lent their work for free. Other nonprofit associations collaborated in the promotion. Within a few weeks, the City of Lugano also lent its support.

After some time, the initiative was admitted to the Google Ad Grants program for nonprofits.

Openness to contact, however, does not always occur with immediacy, especially during meals: people have to overcome mental barriers based also on the ancestral tendency to store and consume food only in the small circle of relatives or members of one's clan (a tendency associated with survival-related needs, which have obviously been outdated for centuries). In addition, an obstacle to seeking social exchange is the stigma of loneliness, the shame irrationally associated with seeking companionship.

Therefore, in May 2019 we created a new project: the active search for venues, clubs, associations, and parks where it is possible to experience conviviality.

By "convivial experience" we mean a conversation, shared activity or even just a greeting that generated a positive feeling.

To build the map of friendly locales, we had the cooperation of many people who pointed out locales where they had had a pleasant experience of social exchange with people they had also never met before.

#Ancheoltre

In the spring of 2020, as people were engaged in the fight against the new coronavirus through social distancing measures, we suspended the campaign to search for friendly locales and launched the new #anchemore campaign.

#also started from the observation that many cultural associations had reorganized to maintain various activities with member people by taking advantage of mostly free Internet applications: bridge or chess tournaments, literary cafes, aperitifs, lectures, etc.

These were activities that gladly could be offered even to those who were not yet members of the association.

The person who was interested could then, despite the isolation, have the opportunity to create new relationships online that he or she could cultivate in person when possible.

This was intended to meet the needs of people who, despite the harshness of the moment, intended to distract themselves by keeping their intellectual abilities dynamic while caring for their relational network.

Pass the pandemic restrictions, Hello Table decided to support with an annual Open Doors these associations, which, since they do not carry out commercial activities, are almost always without a budget for their own promotion. See:

Open Doors of associations offering cultural and leisure activities led by volunteers.

Scientific events 

Parallel to cultural activities, Hello Table promoted scientific events.

Hello Table organizes scientific seminars and conferences concerning topics scarcely investigated by scientific research.

In 2019, the theme was what factors foster spontaneous social exchanges (e.g., between strangers at a bus stop). Essential was the collaboration of professors from the University of Lugano.

In 2020 , again in collaboration with the University of Lugano, we focused on "New Perspectives on Social Exchange and Loneliness Research."

In 2022, the theme was the role of relatives and friends of those who act or suffer violence in countering violence; this conference was sponsored in partnership with Università della Svizzera italiana, Objectif Désistance and the Restorative Justice Association.

The next conference will be on the stigma associated with the condition of loneliness. Click here [ newsletter link ]if you would like to be informed about this event.

Social Research Prize Biennial international award established starting in 2020.

Being resilient in relationships

Hello Table wanted to reach out to people in the entourage of those who suffer or act violence who wish to do something to stop the aggression to offer them psycho-legal counseling in a "cultural" context, that is, neither health nor judicial. This project was elaborated in 2021 and discussed in January 2022 with the Reparative Justice Association (Bruno Balestra), Luisella Demartini-Foglia and Marlene Masino of the Office of Rehabilitation Assistance, and professors Anna Maria Astrologo and Sara Greco of the University of Italian Switzerland and presented at the conference "The Violence We Don't Watch" (Oct. 8, 2022) .