Fifty million euros to carry out "coordinated actions in 15 strategic socio-educational areas" for minors and families living in neighborhoods at greater risk of social degradation thanks to an alliance between public, private and private-social. This was announced in a press conference at Palazzo Chigi by the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Policies Maria Teresa Bellucci, illustrating the initiative promoted by the Strategic Steering Committee of the Fund to combat child educational poverty, established at the Presidency of the Council.
"This story - explained Bellucci - begins with the dramatic events of Caivano. The Prime Minister himself underlined how in Italy there are free zones and where the State has taken a step back, illegality, discomfort, deviance are spread. We have the Caivano of Italy, places, territories in which the most fragile people have paid the highest price. At that moment the Government wanted to take a step forward by proposing its presence, its closeness, launching what our Prime Minister called for a model to address those inconveniences". The initiative of the strategic steering committee of the child educational poverty fund, he added, is "another tool that we put in place to guarantee the presence of the State and of all those who feel responsible and want to participate in the protection of the little ones and the poorest families. I was appointed by Undersecretary Mantovano to chair the committee and we activated a systemic action, we called all the people who could make a contribution: Acri, Third Sector Forum, social enterprise With Children, together to the Anci and to the representation of the regions. To create a defense of legality and love. For this reason we felt the need to share" the project with the three priests active on the front line in the suburbs of Rome, Milan and Caivano, Don Antonio Coluccia, don Claudio Burgio and father Maurizio Patriciello".
The initiatives will be implemented in 11 regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, Calabria, Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia which "have particularly high poverty and crime indices" and in particular in the outskirts of cities. The initiatives, Bellucci pointed out, will be three-yearly and will see an allocation of 3 million and 339 thousand euros for each; funds intended for services for children aged 3 to 21 years old. "There will be youth communities, homes that can welcome children for the right to play, street units with qualified operators, psychological support and pedagogical-educational support services".