Caserta's Leap Towards Social Innovation and Heritage Revitalization

The municipal council has approved a project that falls within the scope of the National Program 'Metro Plus and Medium-Sized Southern Cities 2021-2027', a measure financed by European funds (ERDF and ESF+) and which envisages the implementation of social innovation interventions. The city of Caserta, in fact, has been selected by the Agency for Territorial Cohesion among the 39 medium-sized cities beneficiaries of the resources pertaining to the PN 'Metro Plus and Medium-Sized Southern Cities'. After the green light from the Agency for Territorial Cohesion, interventions for about 8.5 million euros will be carried out. Firstly, thanks to an investment of over 6 million euros, an 'Innovation Social Hub' will be established, the real hub of Social, in via Graefer, where services for the insertion into the labor market (for example: internships, work scholarships) for disadvantaged people, personalized information, guidance and counseling services, services for the activation of 'protected' forms of employment or dedicated accompaniment paths, with the involvement of the third sector, especially as regards people with severe disabilities or the most fragile unemployed. This intervention is part of the project, already put into practice by the municipal administration, which will soon see the transfer of the Social Policies sector inside the Via Graefer building, and which currently houses the offices of the justice of peace. Another project, which will see an investment of 2.2 million euros, concerns the Belvedere of San Leucio, with the revitalization of the UNESCO heritage of the city of Caserta, through interventions of re-functionalization and improvement of usability and accessibility, also with the redefinition of pedestrian and vehicular paths and the removal of architectural barriers. Always with this aim, the development of cultural projects aimed at inclusion and active participation of the weakest and most marginal categories is planned. A common element to all the initiatives of the PN 'Metro Plus and Medium-Sized Southern Cities 2021-2017' is the participation and sharing of the projects by the citizens and the associative realities.