Due to the COVID19 epidemics, thousands of youngsters have chosen to leave the big cities where they worked and studied, and return to their hometowns. In our rural community, marked by decades of emigration, depopulation and brain drain, this scenario offers the chance for creating a new virtuous circle. With ViviSannio, youngsters will be the leaders of an inclusive model of community development shaped by their ideas, competencies and dreams for promoting our tangible and intangible heritage.

Tammaro River Valley, Province of Benevento, Italy

The Tammaro River Valley comprises eleven towns, with a total population slightly inferior to 20000 inhabitants. It is a rural community marked by decades of emigration, depopulation, brain drain and progressively ageing population. Youngsters tend to leave our towns for lack of adequate education, traning and professional opportunities, but also for the perceived inability to play an active role in the decision-making processes related to the life of our community, due to the persistence of a widespread conservative mindset and to a nearly non-exisiting turnover at the political and institutional leve. However, their unexpected return due to the COVID19 epidemics represents an opportunity for addressing these issues, and paving the way for creating a more cohesive and inclusive community.

Tammaro River Valley community (20000 inhab.)
600 youngsters (Youth Think Tank) /60 (School of Governance)
30 local administrators (School of Governance)
30 local entrepreneurs (job shadowing)
5000 national and international travellers (foreseen for the 1st year)
500000 national and international contacts (foreseen for the the 1st year of the platform)

1) Youth Think Tank (Sassinoro Youth Forum,4 months):Call for ideas for youth NGOs, associations and informal groups. From the challenges opposing their active participation in the community, youngsters will develop ideas and solutions for its development
2) Job Shadowing (GAL,3 months):Learning-by-doing process in the hospitality sector for the youngsters, through internships in eco-friendly social enterprises of our valley
3) School of Governance (GAL,3 months):Capacity-building training course for representatives of the local institutions and youth groups, for comparing and learning from best practices in national and European rural contexts. Definition of the ViviSannio strategy
4) Communication&Dissemination (2 months): creation of a multimedia platform and of a visibility strategy

In one year, thanks to the implementation of our project, we believe to have been able to create the conditions for persuading the thousands of youngsters, returned "home" for refuging themsleves away from the fear of the contagion, to give another chance to this territory, to bet on their roots and their belonging to this community, to consider the perspective of living here not as a refuge in the darkest hour but as a realistic alternative based on dignity and quality of life. We believe that, with the support of all the stakeholders involved, we will have paved the way for a more cohesive community, more respectful towards their own rich and diverse heritage, but also open and interested to hear new voices and learn from fresh experiences coming from outside.

Our project answers to the needs of active participation of the youngsters in the decision-making processes that govern the life of our community. Thanks to their competences, their educational, training and professional experiences, their open-mindedness and their awareness of being part of the European way of living, they will be responsible for shaping the masterplan that will envision the development of our community in the next future. This way, they will find reasons for investing on their roots, and will consider the possibility to give an opportunity to the rural way of living - as from expression of conservatism and backwardness, it will have become the form a sustainable, balanced dialogue between individual, community and environment.

We believe in this community and its possibility to set a new, positive, inclusive standard in the relations between humans and environment.

- Management costs (personnel; institutional communication among the partners) 6000 €
- Travel&accommodation of experts involved 2000 €
- Youth Think Tank meetings 8000 €
- School of Governance 8000 €
- Job shadowing in hospitality/social tourism firms 10000 €
- Communication and PR (creation, maintenance and update of the multimedia platform; visibility strategy&promotional events) 9000 €

Any feedback is welcome!