In every city, being able to enjoy well-maintained public areas, such as squares, parks and gardens, contributes to making everyday life more beautiful and pleasant and our urban spaces more livable. What if these improvements also gave rise to new possibilities for integration and social inclusion? Since 2009, Associazione Consorzio Communitas, promoted by the Italian Caritas and made up of 25 entities nationwide, has been developing social projects in collaboration with national and international institutions. The project we support, Custodi del bello, born in 2017 in Milan and then replicated in Brescia, Rome, Florence, Savona, and Finale Ligure, promotes initiatives to care for the environment, to counter poverty and degradation in our cities through public-private partnerships involving fragile people who are reintegrated into the community and the labour market. How is it that an initiative to safeguard public areas can become an opportunity for inclusion? People with economic fragility are given individual guidance and training paths on general skills and specific techniques. People work together on landscaping and parks, small urban cleaning tasks, and urban restoration with vandalism removal and bench painting: many of them then find steady employment, managing to integrate into the labour market. From 2017 to date about 150 people have been involved in the project and about 50 percent have found stable employment. Thanks to our contribution, which adds to the support of Fondazione CON IL SUD and Caritas, Custodi del bello arrives in the southern regions and, in particular, in the cities of Bari/Bitonto, Matera, Caltanisetta and Cagliari. With our support, the project is expanded and strengthened in the cities of Bari/Bitonto and Cagliari with 9 new teams, helping more beneficiaries and prolonging its positive impact on society: because the protection of the environment cannot be separated from the inclusion of people. Details Location: Cagliari and Bari Association: Consorzio Communitas Association Beneficiaries: 54 people with socio-economic fragility Contribution: 180,000 euros Duration: May 2024 - April 2027
