PESCARA – This morning, in the Corradino D’Ascanio room of the Regional Council, in Pescara, the Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Anci Abruzzo and the Forum of Family Associations of Abruzzo, with which a mutual relationship is initiated collaboration aimed at exchanging experiences and implementing concrete actions aimed at encouraging the implementation of municipal family policies or aggregations of municipalities, also within the more general objective of combating the depopulation of internal mountain areas, with the aim of increase well-being and social and economic cohesion.
The activities envisaged in the Protocol, in particular, include the recognition of family policies as investment policies of a preventive and promotional nature, differentiated from actions to combat poverty; the promotion of tools such as the family brand, the family plan, the municipal family card; collaboration in ongoing specific training on family policies for local administrators and operators to be carried out annually; the establishment of an annual prize to be awarded to the Municipality that has stood out for having implemented family policy actions and regulated according to different indicators that take into account good practices and the cultural promotion of this protocol; support for Municipalities that intend to create a municipal plan for the family and start introducing the family factor into municipal services; the encouragement of stable and continuous relationships with family associations for the development, supervision and verification of territorial social planning; the promotion of synergistic action between the Municipalities, the Forum, the Chambers of Commerce and Confindustria in support of companies present in Abruzzo that intend to enhance and implement work-family conciliation policies; the implementation of a general plan aimed at equipping the small municipalities of the internal areas with all the infrastructures (broadband, connection, fibre, etc.) that make an adequate connection accessible to the inhabitants, the absence of which still accentuates the marginality of the territories; the planning of initiatives aimed at raising awareness of municipalities and citizens on the importance of adoption and foster care institutions.
“The Protocol signed today is particularly qualifying, as it recognizes the importance of those policies that put the family at the centre, understood as a place of affection, of common life, as a social formation on which the community is based – underlines the President of Anci Abruzzo Gianguido D’Alberto – enhancing its institutional role and looking in particular at the promotion of fundamental services. The family, families, represent the cornerstone of our society, that primary nucleus of promotion of the values recognized by our Constitution which dedicates three articles to it. For this reason it is necessary, in collaboration with the associations, to promote all those activities that aim to give concrete answers to the needs of families, through, for example, the strengthening of the entire system of educational, social and cultural services, the implementation of sustainable welfare, the strengthening of parenting support policies, in particular those experiencing crisis situations, as well as assistance policies for the elderly and disabled, the creation of socialization spaces, the provision of tariffs for services on demand truly progressive individual program, providing free access for families with greater needs in order to guarantee social equity. And, especially in internal areas, it is necessary to safeguard all institutional facilities, starting from schools”.
The data tell us that in Abruzzo the emergency of emergencies is represented by a strong slowdown in births and the depopulation of internal areas, with a consequent decrease in the school population which, from next year
2024/25, as attested by the official data provided by the School Office for Abruzzo, will be 2,849 fewer pupils. And without schools, communities disappear.
“It is therefore urgent to become aware that, in order to look to the future with confidence – explains Paola D’Alesio, president of the Forum of Family Associations of Abruzzo and member of the national board of the Forum – the mayors and the municipalities administered by them can and must be protagonists of a common commitment in favor of the family and in support of the birth rate and of policies that encourage young couples to remain in the Abruzzo territories, putting them in the concrete conditions of finding a job, a home and realizing the dream of creating a family. We always talk about missing budgets and funds but the Municipalities, instead, want to work with targeted actions to respond to the concrete needs of the communities. We need a cultural change, families need to feel the presence of the institutions and we must think at all levels, urban planning, social, welfare, social housing, local services. A child is an investment in the community and in our future. The signing of this important protocol between the Municipalities of Abruzzo and the Forum of Family Associations of Abruzzo lays the foundations of a real alliance so that the bodies closest to the citizens put resources and projects in favor of the birth rate. We know well that investing in the family is complex and concerns many social aspects, but it is necessary to do so for the good of our communities.”
PHOTO(Author: takasuu | Credits: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
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