The first elderly-friendly village in Italy is born in Guarcino.
In the historic center of the small town of 1,300 inhabitants in the Province of Frosinone, 200 retired couples, 80 university students and 20 artisans and small entrepreneurs will move within 5 years.
Young and old together, therefore, between social housing, alternative mobility and sustainable tourism, in a green and non-polluted place with the aim of promoting and protecting health and enhancing natural resources and green tourism.
It is with these objectives that the "Guarcino 2025" project was born, in line with the provisions of the European Commission and conceived by Alessandro Boccanelli, president of the Italian Society of Geriatric Cardiology (SICG) and of the non-profit organization Health and Society, which activated a committee of doctors, architects, entrepreneurs, university professors including the rector of the Unicamillus University Gianni Profita and the economist Attilio Befera.
"Once upon a time the ideal cities were those told and described by Plato or Tommaso Campanella. Today, in a less utopian and more practical way, 'ideal villages' can be created by focusing on two aspects: sociability and sustainability - declares Alessandro Boccanelli - E from Guarcino a new path of 'smart village' is experimented, aiming at health and well-being.
The idea is to create a sort of 'intergenerational' alliance through cohousing and the creation of new job opportunities where young people can develop crafts and tourism activities and the elderly live in a healthy environment with shared services and a continuous assistance.
This is even more true at the time of the Covid pandemic, because we need to be distant but united. "In short, Guarcino wants to be a laboratory of an eco-sustainable village suitable for the elderly, especially the most fragile, and to transform itself into a research model that can be replicated in all children. Municipalities where the over-65 bracket is very high and where dedicated assistance paths are needed. In fact, Boccanelli underlines, "there are many scientific researches that certify how living near green spaces extends and improves the quality of life".
The formula of the project passes through itineraries on slow tourism (cycle tourism, the paths and the Way of St. Benedict) and the settlement of start-ups and remote workers. This "guarantees a part of the sustainability of the path to enhance the real estate assets of the territory to organize housing and co-housing for the elderly, with centralized services dedicated to them, a local nurse and telemedicine paths, for example
impious - underlines the mayor of Guarcino Urbano Restante - may be those virtuous recipes that allow elderly people to be able to have a continuous check on their state of health and, therefore, live more and with better quality.
The initiative is aimed at bringing 200 retired couples between the ages of 65 and 75 to the village to be accommodated in widespread residences under co-housing, 80 university students between 18 and 26 years, 20 artisans and small entrepreneurs between 30 and 55 years "." The idea of the ideal village of Guarcino can be an interesting key for the study of new urban models - concludes Boccanelli - The Italian villages are at risk of depopulation, we want to show that it is possible to repopulate it by bringing it from services to share.
Sharing, moreover, is one of the keys to enhance the sense of community that small Italian municipalities may have weakened due to the demographic decline, but which they have never lost ". (ANSA).