Good social practices for widespread civic participation

Edited by Walther Orsisociologist and activist of Cittadinanzattiva Emilia Romagna

What are good social practices? Who promotes them and what is the impact they produce on the community and on the territory in which they take place? Cittadinanzattiva Emilia Romagna has chosen to focus attention on them, through a specification Researchto define its identity and value.

Good social practices represent actions, behaviors, projects, aimed at improving the quality of life of the community and the care of common goods, which see citizens (individuals and / or informal groups) as protagonists, with the involvement in some cases of local institutions , of the third sector, of companies. These are experiences, often little known and underestimated, despite the importance of the impact they produce on the community and on the territory.

These experiences of widespread civic participation tend to respond to at least three areas of social needs: the need for care, maintenance of public goods and green areas; the need to overcome certain social divides between ethnic groups, cultures, age groups; the will to improve the relationship between citizens and institutions.

Here are the main reasons expressed by the protagonists: the will to put certain ethical, social, cultural and spiritual values ​​into practice; the desire to experience community experiences, characterized by acceptance, trust, collaboration, sharing, participation; the goal of improving the quality of life, through behavior oriented towards social, economic and environmental sustainability; the pleasure of having a social recognition of one’s voluntary work. At the level of social impact, the protagonists and social actors involved, with their direct testimonies, have highlighted the following results of good social practices: they induce behaviors characterized by “more diligence”, “less degradation, greater civilization”, ” fight against consumerism “; “They are a stimulus for the institutions to work better”; “They contrast their own loneliness and that of others”; they achieve “strong cohesion between all citizens directly involved”; they promote “new relationships between citizens, parents, people belonging to different age groups”; they respond to the needs of citizens, and improve their quality of life and those around them.

Following the results of the research, Cittadinanzattiva Emilia Romagna has given evidence and value to good social practices, through multiple initiatives and communication tools, such as a site dedicated web, social media, newsletters, conferences and training seminars.

Most of the more than 250 good social practices surveyed see young people in Italy and abroad as protagonists and refer to the following operational areas: “loneliness and fragility”, “environmental emergency and ecological transition”, “cultural, sporting and recreational activities”, “Educating community”, “sustainable and inclusive tourism”.

It is above all the experiences conducted by young people that reveal some innovative processes and new scenarios of civic participation. Their good social practices overturn the meaning of interpretative paradigms: needs / problems become opportunities for improvement; promote widespread co-design; they bring out the social invention of the new generations which tends to develop a new relational balance between young people, institutions, businesses, the third sector; they enhance the empowerment power of young people who highlight new needs, planning and entrepreneurial areas and therefore also new professions.

In the current phase, the “Good social practices” project intends to deepen and share these new processes and scenarios with some significant witnesses of the youth world, with particular reference to the young people of Cittadinanzattiva Young. Together with them it proposes to activate a path of comparison and involvement of: entrepreneurial associations, third sector, local authorities, trade unions, training institutions, in order to identify possible convergences and areas of collaboration, with a view to launching concrete experiences of co- design, which have young people as protagonists.

Anyone wishing to tell a good social practice of which they are a witness or protagonist, or contact us to start one can do so by filling in the following form.

Good social practices for widespread civic participation