Municipality of Camini

The Solidarity Municipalities Network is a project promoted by some Piedmontese administrators. The municipalities that joined the network are small, with reduced budgets and low resources. Some Municipalities realized that through networking they can take part to cooperation projects. For the municipalities that adhere to it, no obligation has been envisaged, except a moral one: to promote solidarity and awareness on the territory.

Year(s): 2014

Target group(s): Italian Municipalities

Website: http://www.comunisolidali.org

Methodology

One project managed by the Solidarity Municipaities Network focus on the repopulation of some small municipalities by immigrants. Camini is a small village nearby Locri (800 citizens). The National Geographic has recorded and documented the rebirth of this small village that welcomed and hosted 80 people coming from Syria and Africa. Here refugees work and produce, they take care of abandoned houses and repopulate schools, streets and facilities of a village that was about to disappear.

Refugees are given a sort of “daily pocket-money” that goes back to the shopkeepers of the area under the form of “coloured banknotes”. This “special currency” was designed by the Solidarity Municipaities Network and can be used in the village only. Shopkeepers then reconvert it in Euros. 

Type of product

Integration project

Brief description of the product / outcome / method

The City has rent some houses from private owners who now host immigrants, who, in return, make various jobs and with their presence prevent the village from dying.

Impact on target groups / Transferability potential

Promoter of the initiative

Name of organization / individual: Solidarity Municipalities Network

Country: Italy

Website: http://www.comunisolidali.org

Contacts: coordinamento@comunisolidali.org +39 0122.48934 - +39 0119724245