AND Luckily they were “neet”, lying down, inconclusive. Who spent their time on social media between selfies and memes. A chat with the girls who are dedicating themselves to what are now called rural or marginal areas, countryside and semi-abandoned villages, forgotten green areas, to recognize in them that disposition to innovation that some neuroscientists say is naturally inherent in their brains. As for competence, the degrees in Development Economics, Intercultural Communication, European Calls Design, Methodology of Social Services, Urban or cultural regeneration, speak for themselves. Like studying abroad for internships, exchanges, specializations. Back, they got involved to create the conditions that would allow them, and their peers, to stay. Because it is the girls who usually leave, while – according to the data – 64 percent of young people would stay if they had the chance, and 93 percent would gladly collaborate with the administrations.
It is true that today, when there is so much talk about the National Strategy for Inner Areas, that even the Recovery Plan invests in the protection and enhancement of villages and rural landscapes, the lights are on them. Those who have not waited for retirement age to understand that quality of life is not just economic success and which – little note – are rarely expressed in the first person, as if the “I” had been absorbed into the “we”. Some say they are an example of happiness reset, of a new sense of happiness, but it would already be nice if they were the emblem of the generation that will build the future in their image. Willing to take charge and care of sleeping territories and focus everything on the environment, sustainability, a sense of the common good. It would be nice. It would be enough to let him do it.
“We build community (and hope)”
Silvia Di Passio, Daria Tiberto, Giulia Cau
Giulia Cau, Silvia Di Passio and Daria Tiberto_7387
“It is difficult to make people understand what I do, in Italy the figure of the community manager for rural areas is not recognized, but when I have to explain it in a few words I say: it was what Barack Obama did in the Eighties”. Almost a “veteran” Silvia, with a degree in International Relations and various collaborations with institutions and parks. At the first experience instead Daria, directly from the University of Trento, and Giulia, who after three years in Uganda as a project manager is now here, in Seneghe. Under the aegis of the Arco-Giovani community manager project for the activation of rural communities, they are working to regenerate this Sardinian agricultural village where young people usually leave from. “They do it because they can’t imagine themselves differently, they have ideas, but they don’t see how to make them happen. We listen, we restore trust, we put them in contact with their counterparts in Italy and Europe ». Every morning, they leave the house and start talking to whoever they meet. On the street, in the square, at the bar. Together with the inhabitants they create maps of ideas, choose the games for children in the park, decide what to do with the houses in the historic center. “It is a work based on passion and ethics. For our generation, which grew up seeing parents returning from work tired and dissatisfied, acting on the local – while being connected to the global – is a way to affirm another idea of living “. It was like this – before Seneghe – in Ollolai and Nughedu Santa Vittoria. Being a facilitator for rural communities means staying in one place for a year or so, and then leaving, reconnecting new bonds, sewing other stories. What remains of all this? “The relationships between people and institutions, and above all, there remains the hope and awareness that we can change”.
“We grow regeneration in a greenhouse”
Irene Crosta and Eleonora De Biasi
Irene Crosta, Eleonora De Biasi
It doesn’t even seem to be in Genoa, in the “forest” of the Serre di San Nicola: once the park of the Albergo dei Poveri, then the municipal nursery and finally the undisputed kingdom of vegetation. And if today they are the symbolic place of rebirth – with the Serra Maggiore which in the coming months will host exhibitions, conferences, workshops – it is due to two young women who saw, in this forgotten space, the possibility of creating an incubator of ideas on the environment and circular economy. “Greenhouses are the only green space in the city. Regeneration, urban or rural, is one of the great themes of our generation. It is our way of dealing with public affairs, of regaining possession of the sense of belonging to a community, to do politics »say Irene Crosta and Eleonora De Biasi. From September, again thanks to the Alle Ortiche association they founded, the greenhouses will install the first common composter: thirty families who will bring the organic waste to create compost to be used in the greenhouses. “Dto urban ghost to place of participation. An idea that, like the best, was born in front of a glass of wine“.
“I love to work between exhibitions and … hens”
Aura Zanier
Aura Zanier
What is a 25-year-old girl doing as president of an association founded in the 1970s to organize local craft exhibitions? “The old president had resigned and I didn’t feel like letting it all end,” explains Aura Zanier. “Socchieve, Carnia, is where I was born and I realized that organizing an exhibition here (Rassegna Carnica, ed), seeing just 50 people coming for a debate gave me greater satisfaction than doing it in a big city with more audiences. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. In the “old” Committee Gianfranco da Tolmezzo are now all my peers. In addition to taking care of the cultural life of our country of 900 inhabitants, we work to safeguard the environment of Carnia and make the Tagliamento river a Unesco heritage site, while founding Next Generation F&VG we networked with young people from the entire region. Sometimes I think Covid has given me the definitive push to appreciate this dimension. A dimension where the water does not taste of chlorine, I also have my chickens and a lot of greenery available. I know that many define these marginal areas, but what should I say? A smartphone is enough for me to connect with the world“.
“How green is my valley … To make a film about it”
Jessica Degioanni
Jessica Degioanni
«You had to move these mountains, tell them in a different way, so I and my companions from the Italian Network Facilitators of the Inner Areas made short films that talked about us and the inhabitants. I played a girl asking for a lift to go to a rock concert. Hitchhiking on semi-deserted mountain bends! ». The mountains Jessica Degioanni talks about are those of Stura Valley, the inhabitants those of Vinadio. The dream: to create a place where young people can recognize themselves and tourists finally arrive. “I’d like to be an ethologist here someday. The attachment to the valley has matured by studying “outside” and I would like no one to ever take the value of their land for granted. The Valloriate War and Resistance Museum, for example, we are rethinking it together with the elderly of the town: they help us to catalog objects, identify paths, think about events. It is a widespread practice today, because everyone talks about the recovery of rural areas and sustainability, but for us in their twenties they are essential issues: we have no other choice. In my work group, at the beginning we were four, now many more, and together we went to knock on the doors of the mayors of the whole valley. If they meet me today, they recognize me and sometimes thank me. My generation has realized that if we are not the ones to move things, or at least to move them in the right direction, there will never be a chance that they will change for the better.“.
“We revalue by promoting slow tourism”
Federica Savarino and Gabriella Lo Bue
Gabriella Lo Bue
One, Federica Savarino, as soon as she arrived from Argentina, went directly from the airport to register an association, Cunta e camina, for her village, San Biagio Platani (Agrigento); the other, Gabriella Lo Bue, decided not to listen to anyone who said to her “But what are you doing here in Prizzi?” and she never returned to Belgium. “The territory of the Sicani Mountains is large, 29 municipalities, 29 dialects and two provinces (Palermo and Agrigento, ed), but we have concluded that thinking of oneself not as individual villages, but part of a whole, was the only possibility of redemption: it is the spirit of SikanaMente ”they say. A ransom made literally on the spot. “Making ecological and environmental walks in our villages and countryside seemed to us the best way to revalue the area.
Federica Savarino
We did it at the beginning for the inhabitants, so that they could see with their own eyes the history and beauty of the places where they were born, and now we do it to promote slow tourism that can give work to those who remain. Twenty young people from Russia, Argentina, France, Greece, Lithuania will also be with us this summer. We want to show that even if we are “on the edge”, we can be at the center of our world, and for the many who have never even left their commune, bring the “world” into their home. Romance? No, sometimes we still feel like fish out of water, the culture that dominates is conservative, but we know that for the quality of life we want we need to work for a sense of community and solidarity. And we just stopped complaining. ‘
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