The Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria has signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at the subsequent establishment of the Community Foundation of the metropolitan area of Reggio Calabria. The deed was signed at Palazzo Alvaro by the metropolitan city, Municipality of Reggio Calabria, represented by the mayor Giuseppe Falcomatà; University of Mediterranean Studies of Reggio Calabria represented by the vice-rector, prof. Massimo Lauria; Carical foundation represented by Antonino Sorgonà; Piccola Opera Papa Giovanni association, represented by the president, Nino Siclari; Goel cooperative group represented by the Cooperativa Sociale Goel with the president, Vincenzo Linarello; Macramè Consortium represented by the vice-president, Luciano Squillaci; Ecolandia recreational, technological and environmental park represented by the president, Giovanni Pensabene.
The protocol represents the instrument with which the bodies and various private entities interested in the establishment of the Community Foundation of the metropolitan area of Reggio Calabria coordinate their respective interventions to achieve common objectives.
The act is aimed at identifying the appropriate tools to promote, at a local metropolitan level, an integrated network of services, to be implemented with the involvement of the different interested parties, public, private social and the world of volunteering, in order to implement a process of change and socio-cultural growth, respecting the fundamental principles of subsidiarity, responsibility, solidarity.
The metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria, among the objectives shared and promoted by the mayor Giuseppe Falcomatà, intends to support the establishment of a Community Foundation with the aim of activating new resources and providing even more adequate responses to the needs of the community, particularly in difficulty due of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the presentation of the protocol, the metropolitan mayor Giuseppe Falcomatà highlighted that “It is the first Community Foundation that starts on the initiative of a public body, the first in Calabria and among the very few in the whole of Southern Italy. The other beautiful existing experiences were started on the initiative of cooperatives and associations in which institutions and private individuals also participate”:
“It is a tool – added the mayor – which creates a social infrastructure and allows us to create employment and improve the quality of life in the area, also having a social approach on the reference issues, i.e. the transformation of the fragility of an area , in an element of strength. We have a beautiful testimony in Messina, with the Community Foundation which has allowed the continuation of a historic activity linked to the production of beer”. “The approach of the Community Foundations – he stated – is precisely that of creating projects and activities that come from the territory, a winning choice which for us is also of political direction and which we try to apply in all situations that concern the competences of the Municipality and the Metropolitan City”. “Even in this case – concluded Falcomatà – the involvement and presence of the other associations and private individuals who have been operating in this sector for years is important, this is a first step towards formally establishing the Community Foundation and therefore starting with all the projects that can be carried out” .