Monday, December 19, 2018 the community of the Co-Distretto, including the neighborhoods of Alessandrino, Centocelle and Torre Spaccata, formalized and formalized the establishment of the neighborhood cooperative, which for some time now was in the process of definition and co-planning.
The community that has been actively working on the territory for years and that 3 years ago within the Co-Roma project had joined forces for a common interest creating a shared path of activism, in fact, thanks to the skills acquired during the numerous workshops and workshops organized by ENEA and LabGov LUISS within the project Smart cities and communities of ENEA and thanks to the fundamental support of legacoop National, decided to create this innovative tool for the production and management of goods and services to and from the community itself.
The objective that led the urban cooperators to set up this urban collective enterprise was to create jobs for the inhabitants of the territory through activities related to sustainable tourism, culture and services (including digital) neighborhood. This cooperative is the first in Italy to be born in a complex urban area, characterized by low rates of human development and high rates of poverty. This tool represents a model of social aggregation able to build responses shared by citizens to collective needs, as well as an instrument of cohesion of the community itself. It is a shared project, participatory and that enhances and strengthens the relational capital, the community heritage, active citizenship in the management of common urban assets, networking the resources of the territory through a democratic and intergenerational entrepreneurial tool. The idea of transforming traditional civic activism into energy to create new sustainable and social economies, as mentioned earlier, was in the will of the local community for some time now. This will has acquired over time more and more solidity and has been realized thanks to the skills that the urban cooperators of the Co-Distretto have learned during the workshops organized by ENEA and LabGov LUISS, such as the one dedicated to the circular economy and the facilitation of governance processes of urban common goods and a Smart Co-District.
From the initial attention devoted exclusively to the regeneration and enhancement of the Park of Centocelle, the community, formed in ODV under the name of Community for the Public Park of Centocelle, has considerably extended its activism and interest to the care of the three districts that make up the Co-Distretto (Alessandrino, Centocelle and Torre Spaccata). The desire to generate economy for the local fabric and for the less fortunate inhabitants of the area has pushed the cooperators to search for a new juridical vehicle that could allow the pursuit of these purposes. This, thanks to the support at the level of study and research by LabGov, ENEA, legacoop, the Dili and Associati accountancy firm, the architectural firm AlvisiKirimoto, has been identified in fact in the Cooperative neighborhood (or community). Since the identification of this instrument, the cooperators have met several times over the months to study and deepen the details of this legal instrument, to identify future areas of intervention (which will ensure economic sustainability), to start drafting a business plan, to define the details of the statute and the social base and to give a name and a seat of the cooperative constituent. This innovative economic operator, which will be governed by the inhabitants of the three districts, aims to contribute to the action of contrast to the digital, social, economic and infrastructural divide that characterizes the suburbs of large cities. The cooperative will create jobs for the inhabitants of the three districts (and not only) through activities related to sustainable integrated tourism, culture and creativity, circular economy and collaborative and digital services of the neighborhood. During the last meeting that cooperators organized before formalizing the statute in the presence of the notary, was chosen the name “CooperACTiva”, a merger between Cooperative and Activa (from the concept of Mulier Activa) where ACT in capital refers to the will to act (from English to act) for the common good and recalls the initials of the three districts initially involved in the activities of the cooperative (A: Alessandrino, C: Centocelle, T: Torre Spaccata). The social base is composed of many inhabitants who for years were in the front row in the care of the territory, associations and local committees. The process of setting up the neighborhood cooperative has not gone unnoticed in the neighborhood: there are many inhabitants who have spontaneously expressed interest in the project by deciding to inform themselves and/or to take an active part in this adventure. This represents but the umpteenth “first step” of a community that has made many giant steps in recent years and that aims to elevate every day more the quality and impact of its action, equipping itself with cutting-edge and effective tools to meet local needs.
