Playmake-REDS will turn a basketball playground into a space of civic engagement, social inclusion and active citizenship. HOW?! Bringing together different communities, students, youngsters and sports-players, to raise awareness on the value of a collective management of common goods as a means of civic empowerment and growth. REALLY?! SURE!! We believe that grassroots actions together with constructive and multicultural dialogue can positively change the political decision making process!

Central Italy, Lazio region, Rome, Municipality 8, neighborhood of “San Paolo”

The challenges we intend to address are several: to reactivate the passion for civic commitment and refocus on the values of a community vision, contrasting the tendency towards an individualistic vision of society. Another challenge is to involve young people, a fundamental resource in this process, trying to give them back an active and participatory role. The aim is to raise awareness and promote the care and self-management of a common good as a positive and useful value for the community, countering an increasingly careless attitude that sees the public place as a place of no one instead of everyone’s and therefore to be valued. Through a continuous process of community involvement, the project aims to build a network that can serve as a tool to counter distrust of institutions

The project aims to bring together all the people who daily live the space of the basketball playground of San Paolo, focusing on the active involvement of young people who already frequent it. This target group is divided into distinct groups of young people belonging to different cultural communities (second and third generation migrants, Roma community, locals).
Furthermore, the project aims to involve all the students who, due to the presence of the University “Roma 3” and the opening of a new student residence in the neighborhood, will experience the space. The goal is to broaden the participation and use of the playground not only to this different groups but to enlarge it to the whole community through not only management and care activities but also workshops and sports activities

Our project aims to engage different communities in active citizenship, build new dialogue among the subjects involved by taking care of a public space.
Oct 2021: CoMù and All Reds Basket will start a peer-to-peer action to raise awareness in the different communities of the value of the place. This process will end up in a public assembly (End of Oct), open to all citizenship
Nov 2021 - Mar 2022: a participative process of research and analysis, led by the University (Architecture Department), will investigate the area of intervention to start dialogue among local institution, citizenship and the different communities which live the public space
Mar - Sep 2022: Round Tables - held with the different entities and groups, to give feedback on the research and create a Local Committee which will manage the next steps with a participative approach. A “Contest-4-Young ArchiTalents” will be launched to stimulate students and community members to enhance the space; the outcome will be given during the final event
Apr - Aug 2022: All Reds Basket will organize different sports activities in the playground, as a means of dialogue and exchange, conflict resolution and civic engagement
Apr - Aug 2022: All the subjects will participate to the development of a GIS mapping of the area and create a Manifesto to engage everybody in the care of the space
Oct 2022: final public event

Playmake-REDS will turn the playground into a space of civic engagement, social inclusion and active citizenship, bringing together the different communities, students, youngsters, sports-player. It will foster self-management of commons and exchange of perspective through dialogue and participative decision making processes.

The results will be reached through:
-A Local Committee: space of dialogue to express social needs and political bottom up decisions
-A Manifesto of good practices: a result of the debating and dialogue
-Contest-4-Young ArchiTalents: collection of project proposals to advocate local institutions on area enhancement
-Sports: to foster dialogue, participation and social inclusion

Results will be measured by qualitative and quantitative indicators

Local Committee will be the space for local citizenship and groups to dialogue in order to address local institutions a common view on the needs of the area. This dialogue represents a base for a community-empowerment process, in which all the subjects take civic responsibility on decision making. Comù, with its experience in self-management of commons and dialogue with the institutions, will give a concrete example and will help the process of social and civic engagement.
The process of analysis and research on the territory aims to reinforce the historical, geographical and political knowledge of the area, making the inhabitants of the district aware of their past, role and identity.
Sports and social activities will be the tools to encourage local citizenship to approach the project

CoMù is an association of socially engaged young people rooted in the neighborhood of San Paolo and embedded in formal and informal networks of civil society organizations. Our activism ranges from international cooperation to popular sport and neighborhood politics in defense of minorities and in a perspective of gender equality. All Reds Polisportiva has experience of popular sports since 2005: good practices and skills acquired will be available for the project. All Reds’ Players and coaches will take care of sports and recreational activities. Playmake-REDS wants to make beneficiaries active part of the all the project phases: our idea is to make them part of the team with the aim to create real active participation.

Project management (coordination, administration) 8500 €
Workshop (material, external expertise) 6000 €
Training (sports trainers, equipment) 5500 €
Research (coordination, University, material) 4000 €
Office expenses (stationary, utilities, etc) 1000 €
Communication & Visibility (flyers, manifesto, PR, social media management) 3.500 €
Extra costs 2000 €
Co-financing 7000 €

We want to create dialogue and best practice sharing in order to foster practical alternatives of solidarity action. Even if our perspective is politically and geographically situated, our project proposal can be adapted, improved or discussed from different perspectives. Feel free to share with us!