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The City of Peace for Children in Basilicata
A Feasibility Study for the
Sustainability of an Idea.
 
 
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The City
of Peace is born from an
idea of Betty
Williams, Nobel peace
prize laureate 1976
who, in 2003 during the
popular mobilization in
response to the project
to locate a deposit of
radioactive material in
Basilicata at Scanzano
Jonico, intervened in
support of an
alternative use of this
territory.
The Region of
Basilicata, has inserted
the proposal within the
"Pact with the Young"
and, with a feasibility
study awarded through
public tender to CRETA
Consultants and
concluded in 2007,
intended to verify
technically and
economically if it
were possible to realize
this innovative project.
As suggested by World
Centers of Compassion
for Children of Betty
Williams, the City is
envisaged as “a time
and a space for
Education to Peace and
to the formation of
excellence” not only
as a safety area for
children and their
families coming from war
zone nations.
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Staring from this
consideration, the Feasibility
Study has identified
the City of Peace not so
much with a new physical
structure destined in exclusive
ways to carrying out the
activities indicated in the
WCCCI
proposals,
rather with a brand of quality
that can unite different
initiatives, developed by public
and private subjects, that
qualify the territory and have as common denominator:
-
the reception, care
and integration of
children and their families
coming from war zones;
-
the utilization of the
professional competences of
existing social operators
active
in the ambit of migration,
inter-cultural and
cooperation to development;
-
education to the
culture of peace and multi-culture.
The
study has been
articulated in the
following principal
phases:
-
a
reconnaissance of
good practices and analogous
experiences realized
and a
verification of
international
demand
and the offer of similar services
already present in
Basilicata;
-
therefore
objectives were
focalised,
the activities
identified and a first
sizing of the
intervention and the
possible phases of
realization
were
reached;
-
a
series of alternative
locations
were developed operating
a choice with
multi-criteria methodology and the
concrete availability of
spaces
for
the anticipated
activities
were verified;
-
an
environmental,
financial, economic and
social evaluation
was undertaken
including
the quantification
of
the necessary resources;
-
finally, the
procedures
necessary
for the realization
and management of
the intervention
were identified.
The phase of
analysis of the
offer brought to
light in
Basilicata:
-
the presence of
voluntary
Associations
that operate in
the social
fabric
in similar
sectors to that
of the
intervention
(a good 430
according to the
annual Register
of Voluntary
Organizations) of
which at least 9
realities
have
direct
interest in
the realization
of this project
being that they
are
already busy in
activities
conform
to
those of the
City of Peace;
-
a
considerable
presence of
social
cooperatives:
the Basilicata
holds to
the second place nationally
(19,8 social
cooperatives
for every 100
thousand
inhabitants) and
social co-ops
involving 2.531
people;
-
existing
structures that,
with limited
costs of
restructuring
and refurbishment,
can host the
functions of the
City resolving
also the
problem of utilisation
of some
properties
that are
almost
entirely
recuperated
such as
the Baronial
Building of
Scanzano Jonico
and, the Complex
of S. Maria di
Orsoleo at S.
Arcangelo and
exploiting the
possibility of
involving small
municipalities of the
Val d’Agri for
the reception.
Principal
objective: to
realize a
structure able
to welcome, in a non-episodic way,
children
and their relative
families coming from
war stricken areas,
guaranteeing an
integration within the social
fabric.
Objectives
relevant to the goals of the
regional
politics:
-
diffuse
the culture
of reception
and inter-culturalism
by
opening out to
“external
know-how” and
the
involvement
of
international
organizations;
-
qualify
the
Voluntary
realities
that deal
with the
reception
already
present in
the
region aimed
at creating new
employment
occasions;
-
attract
new
inter-institutional
collaborations
with the
local
corporate
bodies and the
associative/partnership
world;
-
qualify
the
territory
elaborating
sustainable
models of
economic
development
improving
the
contextual
conditions
that favour
local
development
and
territorial
attract
ability
(especially
in a
disadvantaged
context such
as Val
d'Agri) also
developing
environmental
research
projects and with the
use of low
environmental
impact
energies
and
alternatives
to the
nuclear one;
-
integrated
utilisation
of public and
private
resources
for a
long-term sustainability
of
the
initiative
and to
define a new
model of
integration
finalized to
qualifying and
reviving
the
territory;
-
consent a
recovery of
existing
structures
in some
urban
centers of
the Region.
On the basis of
the benchmarking
analysis of and
the analyses of
the demand and
offer, the
City of Peace is
founded
on five
organizational
modules/forms:
-
center of
reception
for children
(and their
families)
coming from
war zone areas;
-
international
campus of
education to
peace
and sustainable
development,
finalized to
carry out, from
a side,
functions of
specialist
formation
and
laboratories/work-shops
for
operators
active in
subject of
migration,
inter-culture
and
cooperation
to development
and, from the
other action
of education
to peace
and the
multi-culture
towards civil
society;
-
center for
the
organization
of humanitarian
missions;
-
center of
management
and
coordination
of the
activities of
the City for
Peace;
-
center of
excellence
for research and
scientific
development
for the
environmental
safeguard
and alternative
energies
that will
act to
complement
of the
principal
areas of
intervention
of the City
for Peace.
 As regards the reception, it is foreseen that
the minors continue living with their families in
prevalently integrated lodgings with the common structures.
The Study carried out an investigation on the possible environmental impacts of the
Solutions looked into. In the identification of the
main critical and environmental risk situations all the alternative locations have all been analysed according to the following factors: location;
project typology and eventual adopted technologies;
organization, relational and management system of the intervention.
A matrix of critical situations and environmental risks
was structured, during which the following was
carried out:
-
verification of the compatibility of interventions
included in every alternative, with the actual urbanistic tools;
-
description of the principal modifications foreseen on the environment;
-
verification of compatibility in comparison to the objectives of the project.
Such verifications have underlined the preference, from the point of view of environmental impact, of the
diffused reticular location model.
A verification of the economic and financial sustainability of the intervention has been effected analyzing the inherent
investment costs of the real estate
properties, the planning, the refurbishment or new construction, furnishing and
fittings, equipment and the running costs.
The evaluation of financial sustainability has been conducted foreseeing
the input of private resources (sponsors, donations, etc.) relative to
sustaining management costs and the framework of National and
EU/community politics on subject of social solidarity, assistance and reception
have been
examined with the purpose
of identifying further financial resources .
The FS has foreseen the financement of a
first phase at a cost of approx. €4
million comprising the:
-
work of recuperation/refunctioning of the infrastructures;
-
supply of necessary equipment;
-
start up activities of the first
year (which envisages the first module for hosting
25 children and their families for approximately 75 people, the activities of the Education to Peace Campus and the center for the organization of humanitarian missions).
When the activity of the first
nucleus will
be rolling, the amplification of the center of excellence for research will proceed and the reception center can
be expanded to host 1.000 people.
A managerial organizational form will be constituted such as a Foundation or an Association or also
by a Consortium.
The
participation of public
subjects and institutional promoters in
first phase of start up (WCCCI and
Basilicata
Region) is in every case desirable - open also to other public subjects (the
municipalities of Scanzano and Sant'Arcangelo, the
municipalities of the Val D'Agri and the Metapontino) and private
subjects, to be involved on the basis of initiatives that
will be concretely developed.
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