Anèl means both “ring” and “bond” in Occitan, the ancient language of a few mountain valleys in north-western Italy. Anèl is a round-shaped system of relationships that enables the sharing of skills, places, and time between 3 target groups: local entrepreneurs, vulnerable subjects, and young citizens. The objective is to enhance each group’s potential, generate mutual benefits, and foster the social and economic development of the entire community while strengthening participatory processes.

Valle Stura di Demonte, Cuneo, north-west Italy

The challenge we are facing is to address specific local needs by developing a systemic territorial response, focused on its untapped social, economic and cultural potential. First, by actively involving tourism and agricultural businesses, deeply involved in the local ecosystem and struggling to strengthen their social and economic network. Second, by valorizing the residual human capital: young people involved in training programs and empowerment processes, local professionals, and the elderly, that are taking an active role in the local community, and are willing to use their skills to its benefit. Last, by considering socially fragile situations - that our project partners are addressing by working with socially vulnerable people - as a potential driver for community cohesion.

1. Local people that are socially vulnerable, specifically: people with all types of disabilities, people suffering drug and/or gambling addictions currently involved in rehabilitation processes, migrants and refugees involved in integration processes, elderly, and unemployed people (around 20-30 people involved).
2. Local students and young professionals, not yet included in the local professional environment and facing the overall lack of locally based job opportunities (around 20-30 people involved).
3. Local entrepreneurs and business managers (mainly operating in the tourism and agricultural sectors, being the two primary local economic activities) that are oriented towards social impact and civic engagement (at least 5-10 enterprises involved).

1. Coplanning meetings to define main targets among the fragile categories present in the area and draft requirements for hosting facilities.
2. Individual meetings with hosting facilities already identified (farms and accommodation) to collect availability and needs.
3. Planning of custom educational experiences.
4. Match between hosting facilities and vulnerable users and timeline of the experiences.
5. Launch of the call for students and young professionals who will be invited to provide consultancies to the hosting facilities (different levels of commitment and reimbursements).
6. Implementation of educational experiences at the hosting facilities (frequency will be defined according to the subject’s needs and the availability of the facility).
7. Match between the young professionals who responded to the call and the hosting facilities.
8. Implementation of the consultancies (type and duration to be defined based on the availability of professionals and the experiences hosted by the facilities).
9. Throughout the project, encounters for the different groups to evaluate the progress of activities, report any problems, and provide shared training tools.
10. Construction of a cross-segment working group to plan other collective actions and/or replicate the project elsewhere.
11. Final moment of celebration.
12. Evaluation and report to the community.

The main expected result of this project is the increased awareness within the target group, concerning their capacity to achieve new goals, their understanding of the local social context and of its resources, their own potential to bring about change, thanks to the relationship created within the territory. Another important result will be the construction of solid and structured relationships, between actors that are not usually connected, starting from their specific skills. These new connections could set the stage for future civic cohesion initiatives, and also strengthen the sense of community within the entire valley.

Hosting facilities will put into practice their willingness to support the community by working with social services and hosting vulnerable subjects. In return, they will get professional consultancies to grow their businesses. Young students and professionals will take greater control of their professional life by applying their skills to support local enterprises (the hosting facilities) while getting economic recognition. Social cooperatives will be strengthened in their role as activators of social and economic innovation as the community will acknowledge their civic value. All three groups will be actively involved in the decision-making process of the project in order to foster proactive behaviors and start new conversations with the valley’s governance bodies.

The team in charge of leading and coordinating the project includes 4 persons (all members of the cooperative NEMO): Francesco, professional educator and partnership coordinator; Irene, project manager; Roberta, service designer; Gabriele, anthropologist expert in rural contexts. We all share a deep passion for the mountains, which we see as the perfect laboratory for social, cultural, and economic innovations. Our own personal challenge is to create new, long-term opportunities for these territories and their communities, by highlighting their resources and providing concrete answers to their needs.

Personnel costs (NEMO and partners): 20.000, reimbursements of the consultancies: 10.000, communications: 10.000.

Feedback on the project’s structure and clarity of explanation, comments on the overall project scope, advice on how to better describe our mission.