"Rete delle Case del Quartiere" (Network of Neighborhood Houses), is an organisation established by the eight "Case del Quartiere" (Neighborhood Houses) of the City of Turin.
The eight Houses are multi-functional community hubs located in different areas of the city.
Which activities?
The Houses are places of active participation: they encourage people to take part in the social and cultural life of the neighborhood and the city, through different forms of active citizenship, volunteering and cultural activities. Thus they are places where people look for and experiment new ways of doing welfare, developing proximity-based networks, and seek collective solutions to common needs.
The Houses are places for artistic and cultural promotion because they recognize creativity and expression as a powerful tool for the community and the future.
They define themselves as Houses, because their goal is to make people feel at home. They are places of everyday life in an open dimension where it is possible to stay, socialize and be active by taking part in activities as well as becoming promoters of projects and initiatives.
The Houses host, disseminate and give value to cultural, artistic, social and recreational activities; information desks; courses; workshops; family services; performances; lectures and exhibitions. The Houses guide and support those institutions which aim to promote projects and events by making available knowledge, spaces, tools and resources in order to ensure the success of these self-organised projects.
We are happy to join the ENCC network and we are willing to share our experience and connect with other European organizations that carry out projects connecting culture and active citizenship.
The network takes also part in European projects, i.e. as partner within the CO-CITY project that supports the development of an innovative, polycentric “commons-based urban welfare” composed of generative communities centred on urban commons, low-cost service co-production, social mixing, and care of public spaces. Rete delle Case del Quartiere contributes to the project involving different target groups in the debate about the shared management of urban commons.
How does it work?
The Neighborhood Houses are based on the cooperation between public and private sector: most Houses are hosted in public (municipal) buildings but are managed by private bodies deeply-rooted in the territory - associations of first and second level, foundations and cooperatives - that are the results of participatory processes. Thus they rely on a combination of public and private funding, as well as self-sustainability. The Houses are management models able to constantly learn from experience.
The eight Houses find their strength on those aspects that link them one to another, as well as on the specific characteristics of each House and neighborhood.
A bit of history
The eight houses of the network were established over the years at different time - the last one in 2007 - in the framework of different programmes. Since 2012 they have developed a common vision and decided in 2017 to create the first Italian network of neighborhood houses. They are currently helping other cities or non-profit organisation throughout Italy to start up similar experiences.
