The French writer Guillaume Musso, in one of his famous books, wrote:
“ In human existence there are moments when a door opens and our life is projected toward the light. Rare moments when something inside us discloses itself .”
so that even the city, its suburbs, project themselves towards those small glimpses of light, resulting in processes of urban regeneration, as in the case of the San Berillo Nuovo district of Catania, also called San Leone, which is moving towards speculation, resistance to degradation and youth deviance thanks to the intercultural project “ FIERi ”.
Traits of a resilient neighborhood
The neighborhood seeks to resist the impacts of the past, the cultural, social, and urban decay, by removing those factors of exclusion and activating the socio-scientific process of urban resilience . For a social system, resilience is the ability to face change without losing its identity, as often happens in the new San Berillo neighborhood, where a community faces difficulties without fear or distancing itself from transformations, but by maintaining its roots, its history, the connective tissue that sustains daily life, social exchanges, and the symbolic system that sustains the entire community.
The FIERi project
FIERi (Intercultural Eco-Sustainable Reuse Factory ) aims to be visible against the invisibility that the Nuovo San Berillo mentality creates. The project was born in 2017 and is located at Via Palermo 541. This social organization aims to engage both migrant men and women living in Catania and residents of the neighborhood, with a vain effort to involve young people. This cultural heritage is intertwined with artisanal knowledge, with workshops set up to teach people how to repair and recycle various types of materials, through specific design phases, to create functional objects from materials no longer used by people, generating a productive circular economy.
It represents a space where residents can dispose of various unused items, knowing that, thanks to the project, they will become something new. It is a creative workshop that blends the dimensions of a second-hand shop with that of a design shop, aiming to provide a job opportunity for both migrants and young Catanians passionate about reuse, craftsmanship , and innovation. It addresses the problems of exclusion, unemployment, and waste, fostering integration, employment, and respect for the environment and the local area.
Inside the reality of FIERi
I discovered the FIERi project during a tour of Nuovo San Berillo with anthropologists Alessandro Lutri and Stefano Portelli. There, we learned about the project and the spaces it promotes for various activities. I later interviewed Antonio, one of the members of the FIERi project:
- Claudia: “How did this project come about?”
- Antonio"This farmhouse was an abandoned space. Twelve Catania associations submitted a project, funded by a private foundation, to build a reuse factory. This project proposed identifying a place where this activity could be carried out. In the end, the municipality granted us this space. The project included funding for renovation, as the site needed major work, and also the idea of offering courses related to reuse, with various workshops: soap making, carpentry, electrical repairs, tailoring, screen printing, bicycle repair, and costume jewelry creation, all using recycled materials.".
What is the purpose of the laboratories?
- Claudia: “Who are these workshops for? And for what purpose?”
- Antonio"These courses are aimed at migrant youth hosted in various communities in Catania. The goal is to train them, give them the opportunity to learn something, and perhaps even place them in the workforce. Once the courses are over, we'll have to see if anyone intends to stay here in Catania, as most are just passing through. We'll try to turn the workshops they've completed into real job opportunities.".
- Claudia: "Which workshops are well attended? And will the products created be sold?"
- Antonio"The tailoring, soap-making, and carpentry workshops are the most popular. Something no longer used can be regenerated and reused. All the objects created are then exhibited and sold, thanks to many fairs, including the one held at the Benedictine Monastery in Piazza Dante, "'A fera Bio".".
The initiative seen from the neighborhood
- Claudia"How did the neighborhood react to this initiative? Did they cause you any problems?"
- Antonio"When we opened in the evening, I was afraid, given the neighborhood, which could be seen as a disturbance. Instead, when the music was playing, the neighborhood people enthusiastically participated. One of my primary goals is to involve the entire neighborhood because it's essential, especially for children and young people. It's a beautiful space! See that green area, Claudia? We'd like to create an educational garden to teach those who participate about the many properties of plants and flora. The project leader is the Arci Association. The "Zeronove" bike repair shop, located at Via Opificio 09, in the old San Berillo neighborhood, supported our project.".
- Claudia: “What would you like this place to become?”
- Antonio"I'd love for this to become a meeting place, hosting cultural events, and involving the neighborhood is a priority. For some time, the Arci students and I had been thinking about how to realize a project like this; the idea of combining immigration and reuse practices. Why not combine them? It shouldn't be an activity that ends, but one that creates jobs.".
Why dedicate it only to migrants?
- Claudia"Why was the project aimed only at migrants? Was it difficult to also target local residents?"
- Antonio"The project was aimed at migrants because there was a need for something concrete, especially in the emergency situation related to the arrivals; to promote a process of social inclusion in a neighborhood where exclusion reigns supreme. But there's another very important aspect!".
- Claudia: “What would that be?”
- Antonio"Involving people from the neighborhood, or Catania as a whole, in activities like this is very difficult, especially for young people. While migrants are happy with anything you offer, even for free, if you offer it to the neighborhood kids, they won't come, because they need and demand financial reward. But if you're unemployed, instead of hanging out in the streets doing nothing, you come here and at least have the opportunity to learn something and begin a real process of acculturation, very different from your everyday life. So you understand that involving non-EU citizens is much easier. If it's just a day, maybe someone from the neighborhood will come, but over longer periods, everything ends up being profitable.".
FIERi as a social and emotional reality
The FIERi kids, despite their linguistic and cultural differences, have their own logistical way of creating, of understanding each other, and precisely among these different ways of meeting, in the saponification sector they have created two of the most marketable soaps in the laboratories ( Photo 1 ): the “ Natural Pharmapur ” with Daucus flowers, since it expresses the memory of a soap used in Africa, thus making it clear how ' creating ' can be activated without detaching oneself from their customs and emotional certainties, and the “ White Baobab ” soap.
As can be seen, Nuovo San Berillo has also become a multicultural neighborhood, something it didn't previously have, as the area's immigration rate was almost nonexistent. It's not easy to communicate when language barriers and educational gaps arise, making even basic concepts a veritable mountain to climb. It's clear that within a neighborhood dominated by exclusion , this new living context and intercultural contact alters linguistic behavior and influences the subjective image of one's own language/culture of origin. Therefore, it's important to examine how new senses of belonging and the underlying processes of acculturation are manifested through communicative choices.
Create your own integration processes
Migrants bring their old values with them and try to apply them in a new environment dominated by different rules, where conflicting attitudes and values lead to social disorganization. Only the development of new attitudes will enable a new phase of reorganization. Those who participated in the FIERi workshops created their own integration processes that transcend neighborhood prejudices, embracing the emotions and sensations that the project successfully triggered in an effort to ward off all forms of discrimination and social exclusion.
One of the boys, Amadou, from Beyla (Guinea), who works in the soap-making workshop, shared his thoughts and feelings about the project with me: “ Since March of this year, I have been attending the FIERi soap-making workshop. During these months, I have learned so many new things: what ingredients are needed to make soap, how much to use, and how to use flowers to give it essence. Together with the boys, I have made many different soaps, some of which have been sold at local markets. This has been a very meaningful experience because it has opened up a potential path for my future and, above all, for improving my plan for social integration. In fact, I would like to learn more and more about soap-making techniques and turn this activity into a real job .”
Immigration as a resource and tool for inclusion
Immigration shouldn't be considered a threat, but rather a resource , as the immigrant population has grown significantly over the last twenty years, filling jobs that Italians consider unattractive, such as agriculture, family work, and construction. Inclusion doesn't mean social and cultural disunity; we're dealing with people who can't be chosen or discarded at will, according to political, economic, or, sadly, religious logic. It seems completely pointless to build walls of indifference or fear.
Community must be understood as a group of people who share, in various ways, values and cultures , coalescing around places, interests, resources, and projects. It demonstrates that there is a broad and diverse universe of initiatives in which cooperative action is far from residual compared to traditional economic and institutional structures, but can represent a significant form of systemic innovation that merits targeted support from a variety of stakeholders, starting with those who represent and promote the cooperative model, as in this case through the intercultural experience of FIERi, which is an example.
Every city, neighborhood, culture, and urbanization process develops its own history . The New San Berillo has its bright spots, even though it is a source of deviant perdition, leaving no room for regeneration, where a rigid and "negatively eccentric" mentality is stronger and more serious than any degradation that blocks or nullifies its every dimension, offering even a faint illusion.
Claudia Coco
To learn more…
Bibliographic References
- Coco C. (2018), Practices and approaches to living in the city. Actions, spaces and differences “in” the neighborhoods of San Berillo, Unict, Catania.
- Giacalone F. and Pala L. (2005), A multicultural neighborhood, FrancoAngeli, Milan.
- Guidicini P. (2010), How to study the city from within, FrancoAngeli, Milan.
- White Paper (2016), Community Cooperation, Euricse, Trento.
- Musso G. (2015), Central Park, Bompiani, Milan.
- Thomas WI and Znaniecki F. (1968), The Polish Peasant, Community Editions, Milan.
