“Young people tell their stories to young people” could be the subtitle of workshops which was held Tuesday 7 May in Savonawhere the series of appointments made a “stopover”. ANCI offers every day in the departure cities of Giro-Eas part of the broader support and financing program for Italian municipalities, under the National Youth Policy Fund.
In front of an audience made up of over 50 peopleOf average age of 35 yearsthere was a succession of interventions and concrete testimonies from very young municipal operators, cooperators and researchers, animated by enthusiasm and full adherence to the value model expressed by the world of cooperation and the principles of shared administration.
An organized day in collaboration with the municipal administration of Savona which made it a part of the work of the co-programming table initiated for the co-design, with local partnership and stakeholders, of the development strategy to be the basis of Savona’s candidacy as Italian Capital of Culture 2026.
As underlined by Francesco Rossello and the very young staff of the Candidacy Office, it is a Strategy that aims to be a shared and broad-area plan, with a view to aggregating and integrating territories, skills, resources and communities.
The climate that was created in this particular meeting, but also in previous ones, demonstrates how “workshops” well structured in close collaboration with all local entities, they allow participants to acquire skills and, at the same time, build relationships to generate new projects in public-private collaboration. And this is what is happening every day during the meetings organized at the starting locations of the Giro-E.
The numerous speakers touched on important topics, always starting from the discussion on opportunities for engagement and growth of young people linked to local strategies for enhancing the cultural and environmental resources of the areatogether with sports and major events as a driving force for developmentwith particular attention to the morphological characteristics of the Savona area, moving from protected marine areas to the hinterland.
Francesco RosselloCouncilor for Sport, Energy Transition, Infrastructure and Economic Development of the Municipality of Savona: “We have recently joined the Covenant of Mayors, thus committing ourselves to achieving a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030. This workshop is a beautiful opportunity to explore issues related to sustainability and underline the initiatives of the Municipality of Savona find an important reference in all the stakeholders of the territory, businesses, active citizens, cooperators, other public entities actively involved in the ‘design’ and implementation of the Strategies of development put in place: doing it at the Giro-E is a great honor and an even greater boost.”
Present Marilù Cavallero, President of Cooperativa Dafne and Vice President of CulTurMedia Legacoop Liguria, who coordinated the meeting and President Roberto La Marca, who made shared administration the main tool for generating value in the territories through the cooperative model. Vice President Cavallero underlines that the Culture Tourism Communication sector of Legacoop strongly wanted to contribute to this initiative, tracing the contributions of the day to three fundamental elements, culture, sport and cooperation: “Just as in cycling there are champions but also followers , in cooperation all the members and all those who are committed allow, with their contribution, to obtain very specific objectives. Working in a cooperative means having ideals and working together, driven by the idea of building something different, linked to great values and which can have an impact on society. Coop Dafne works for the promotion and valorisation of the cultural and environmental assets of the territory and today we are happy to give voice mainly to young people who are interested in the same principles as us and who are taking their first steps in cooperation”.
Among these young people there is Rebecca Revelloresponsible for the DaDo Network, made up of the Genoese cooperative Dafne and the start-up DOMO who tells us about the project “Zippemmu – digital ecosystems for the community and the environment”, with which two applications will be created in the Education, Green/Environment Protection sectors , Tourism and Culture: a Gamification path in Virtual Reality for separate waste collection and an application for Social Tourism and Territory Promotion, with 360° videos and Geolocalised Maps.
“It is an innovative project – explains Revello – which combines the digitalisation of contents linked to community tourism and valorisation of the territory with environmental protection and environmental education, in particular for primary and secondary school students. I have been at Cooperativa Dafne for a year and a half and I believe very much in the values of cooperation: I wouldn’t see myself anywhere else. I believe that with this form of association and by working together we can achieve goals that have been somewhat lost sight of in recent years.”
Also Gianluca Ottonello, from Campo Ligure, is part of the Dafne team and President of the “Futura” Cooperative that won the Coop-startup tender. It is a Coop made up of a group of very young kids living in the small village who accepted the challenge of creating a community cooperative for tourist, environmental and cultural regeneration, also the subject of the Strategy for which the Municipality was financed with the tender ” Borghi Linea B” of the MiC. The Cooperative and the Municipality have therefore chosen the instrument of the alliance between public and private in the pursuit of common strategic objectives to combat the depopulation of internal areas, expanding and generating essential services for the community.
“The objective of the community cooperative – said Ottonello – is to provide the local reality with the necessary tools to approach tourism, culture and respect for the environment, making the territory attractive both from a tourist and regarding the conservation of tangible and intangible heritage, such as watermark, of which Campo Ligure is the national production centre. It is a challenge because the small towns in the Ligurian hinterland have been facing depopulation, abandonment and degradation for too long, not making the most of the great tourism potential they have. But it is important to try, accept the challenge, make a pact to relaunch our territory together.”
Luisa Sicorello, which with the “Tracce” agroforestry cooperative deals with projects concerning the protection and valorisation of the environment, nature and biodiversity: “The project we are presenting, ‘Quarto tempo’ was born with the aim of valorising the biodiversity of the Savona area, the hinterland, restore the paths and make all this known to those who are part of it, starting with young people. The workshop is also, however, an opportunity to talk about the role of the cooperative system and how it can create development, work and new professionalism linked to natural and environmental resources (woods, forests, natural areas) and their management”.
Davide Virzi, director of the Bergeggi Island Marine Protected Area, one of the thirty Protected Areas in Italy and of the three present in Liguria, established by decree of the Ministry of the Environment in 2007, an excellence of the territory for management, value and planning: ” We host a sort of ‘bignami’ of the Mediterranean in just over 2 square kilometres, with enormous biodiversity that is available to everyone, also thanks to an underwater camera, the only one active in the Mediterranean, located at 18 meters deep and which every every day it broadcasts live on Youtube, showing the beauty of the seabed of our marine area. In addition to environmental protection, research and monitoring activities, we also deal with the promotion and enhancement of the sustainable use of the sea and its resources. We also do this with sporting activities, such as open water swimming competitions and we have just concluded the Bergeggi MareFest, a showcase event for associations of outdoor and sustainable tourism operators”.
Roberta Milano, from the Application Office for the 2026 Italian Capital of Culture of the Municipality of Savona: “The city is applying because it believes in a change of direction: in Savona there is sea, water, hinterland, but it is also the oldest city in ‘Italy. We talk about culture not only as it is traditionally understood, but about local culture, about sustainable tourism as an opportunity for local development and new youth entrepreneurship. Savona has all it takes to strengthen these elements which today are not yet networked but which in concertation and aggregation will find a driving force to generate development”.
Francesca Serviatico-founder of Heart Green Life, a cooperative that won the Legacoop Coopstartup award, and president of SAIE Engineering, a cooperative that operates in the context of digitalization.
“We wanted to give value to the entrepreneurial ideas of our members and this is where the name came from, from similar words meaning ‘land’ and ‘heart’. The objective is to match the future, i.e. 5.0 which has now surpassed 4.0 for everything related to digital developments linked to robotics and artificial intelligence, the environment and human resources”. The heart of the project referred to in the workshop is the recycling of cigarette butts, from which to obtain cellulose acetate extract for the fashion, textile and pharmaceutical industries.
Agnes Peyron, Evolution Guide by Nativa, which as part of the Giro d’Italia measures the economic and social impacts of the Giro and with ANCI creates a focus on the “generational” impact of the great sporting event: “Measuring the economic, social and environmental impacts, in terms of involvement of the territorial ecosystem, it means understanding what impact the Giro d’Italia has on people, this year in particular, on young people and new generations. For this reason, a survey was launched with ANCI to ask young people what value the Giro has for them and how this value can be effectively multiplied, in order to analyze all the data collected and include it in the next RCS Sport legacy report”.
The stage of the Giro-E also started from Savona, just before the start of the workshop, which ended in Andora, just below the finish line of the Giro d’Italia, and which also saw the participation of a ANCI team, led by Giorgio Rocca and made up of local administrators and local ambassadors.
