The URBACT Learning Journey in Siracusa

Firstly, Siracusa adopted and adapted the ‘GeniUS!’ model from the City of York (UK), applying the principles of open innovation to a city context: a mix of online and offline tools for engaging stakeholders to identify needs and create solutions, unlocking existing potential.

One of the project’s priorities was the regeneration of La Mazzarrona, a poor and neglected neighborhood of Siracusa. There, at the Open Innovation (OI) Event, 4 pilot projects were identified in the cultural, mobility, economic and social areas, which were then brought under the umbrella of the ‘Casa dei Cittadini’ (‘House of Citizens’) - an agreement between residents and stakeholders, including the mothers’ association ‘La Forza delle Donne’ (‘The Force of Women’), setting up the basis for a long-term collaboration for the ‘bene comune’ (common good) of La Mazzarona. On March 31, 2015, an agreement to formalize the rules and the uses of the ‘House’ was signed between 24 associations and the Municipality, and the House, with its services, opened at the second floor of an underused school building. The OI event furthered community relations, strengthened a sense of community, including the creation of a ‘GeniUSiracusa’ football team and the organisation of a “Parkour” final show to celebrate the results.

Siracusa continued using the Genius method also during the second URBACT project ‘TechTown’, led by the city of Barnsley, and aimed at finding ways to improve local economies through the Digital Revolution and reinforce collaboration between citizens and PA in a digital way: Adapt or Die! At another Open Innovation Event, the Idea of an App, mapping and matching the existing NGOs was developed and then financed through a European Fund (https://www.socialchallenges.eu/city/13).

The NGO’s activities are certainly crucial in supporting the welfare and in improving the life of citizens, more than ever. Recent austerity measures imposed on Siracusa’s administration including budget cuts resulted, in fact, in the inefficiency of some social services. Therefore, the involvement of NGOs and voluntary organizations is key in health, education and other social services and the social inclusion of vulnerable social groups is a priority of municipal policies.This is exactly why nowadays Siracusa is an enthusiastic partner of the URBACT funded Transfer network ‘Active NGO’s’ aimed at adopting the Riga Good Practice of ‘Riga NGO House’, strengthening the collaboration between Municipality and the Third Sector and among Associations themselves, capitalizing on the previous experiences.

Concerning physical infrastructure, there are several spaces to establish versions of the NGO House in Siracusa:

• The Urban Center, which opened in 2017 after 2 years of renovation, is designated to become an institution where urban policies can be discussed, civic and entrepreneurial capacities can be developed, and institutional events held.
• The House of Citizens in La Mazzarrona, unfortunately discontinued its activities in 2017 because of weak security and growing conflicts in the community. It has also been recently vandalized. But there is significant political support: the municipality applied to different (regional and national) funds in order to renovate the space. The challenge of ACTive NGOs is to re-launch the space, reestablish a sense of community, get local initiatives back on board and set up a sustainable operational model for the space. Processes that will take a long time but that are ongoing. Public works for restoration will start in January 2020.
• The Youth Workshop (Officine Giovani), a 140m2 space designated to offer education and socialization activities as well as support to youth organizations. Similarly, to the House of Citizens, the Youth Workshop’s operation was also discontinued in 2017, waiting to be re-launched with the help of the ACTive NGOs project. It is immediately available.

The URBACT Local Group of ACTive NGO’s, created thanks to the relations already established during the previous URBACT projects, and also through new activities (i.e. launch of a public call, use of the GeniUSiracusa FB page, etc) already met more than 10 times – in both municipal and associations’ spaces - in order to be mapped, and to define rules, responsibility and Spaces’ usage.

The main challenges faced:

• Finding public spaces available.
• How to define the real needs, in terms of the Associations’ spaces and agenda.
• What public procedures can be used (public call, opened or closed and to how many associations and for how many years).
• How to connect different spaces in a joint city-scale governance structure.
• How to share responsibilities (in terms of security, insurance, etc.) and costs between municipality and civic initiatives while co-managing spaces.
• Make Associations understand the importance of collaboration.

Key results so far are:

• The 31 Associations involved have been (also digitally) mapped, using the App ‘Virtuocity’ funded through the ‘social-challenge’, and through a need- assessment questionnaire
• The Associations, with the support of the committed Assessor of Social Services and Volunteering, Mrs Rita Gentile, the Siracusa Staff and the ULG Coordinator, co-designed the ‘Houses of Associations and Volunteers’ Governance Model. Their approach has been to read and rewrite – collectively – the diverse points/articles of the agreement, trying to mix-up the different suggestions made by the group and emerging from other (national and local) agreements.

Next Steps:

The 2 places – Urban Center and Officina Giovani - will be opened in the following months with ‘Beta Events’ showing how the Houses can work at their best: associations providing services and activities to citizens, municipalities offering training course to Associations (i.e. projects writing, privacy issues, Third Sectors national Reform, etc.)

Willing to host the Transfer network partners in Siracusa on the 29 and 30th of October, sharing challenges and results up today!

Written by Caterina Timpanaro

Urbact Thematic Expert and ULG Coordinator (Siracusa team)