About us
Behind the four hostels there is no hotel group. There is Società Cooperativa Ballarò, founded in 2005 by a students' association at the University of Palermo. It is a workers' cooperative of the old kind: the members are the people who work there.
In a workers' cooperative there are no outside investors to pay: the people putting in the capital are the people putting in the hours. What is left over goes back into the hostels and into the work, which is why this site does not compete on price — there is nobody demanding rising margins.
The managers of the four hostels also sit on the board, and a steering committee brings together those who run the sites and those who stand behind the front desk. Decisions do not come down from a distant head office that has never seen a check-in.
The UNI/PdR 125:2022 certification on gender equality is not a self-declaration: it is issued by an independent body and renewed through periodic audits. If practices slip, you lose it.
The cooperative runs five properties. Four carry the Student's Hostel name and are the ones on this site; the fifth is the Foresteria Le Benedettine, held under concession from the University of Pisa.
The cooperative employs 39 people, 59% of them women. The gender equality policy is approved by the board and covers recruitment, pay, career progression and the balance between work and private life.
There is an anonymous reporting channel, open all year and available to people outside the cooperative too: guests, suppliers, anyone with something to report.
On a site about hostels this may look out of place. It is not: whoever accompanies a class or a group of under-18s is deciding who to entrust them to for a few days, and how a place is run matters as much as the rooms.
The limit, plainly: a certification says how things are organised, it does not guarantee that every day goes well. It makes a commitment verifiable, not finished.
Documents and reporting channel (si apre in una nuova scheda)Frequently asked
It is a workers' cooperative: the members are the workers, not outside investors. What is left over goes back into the hostels and the work, and whoever runs each hostel sits on the board.
It is the Italian reference standard on gender equality. It checks recruitment, pay, career progression, work-life balance and reporting channels. It is not a self-declaration: an independent body audits it periodically.
Because whoever accompanies a class or a group of under-18s is choosing who to entrust them to. An independently verified certification says something about how a place is run that no room description can.
There is an anonymous channel, open all year, available to people outside the cooperative too: guests, suppliers, anyone. You find it on the certification site.
You judge an organisation by whoever opens the door when you arrive.
