A highly innovative proposal that wants to become an Italian model, this is the regeneration plan of Settefrati who participated in the tender of the small hamlets of the Ministry of Culture.
A proposal that unites the different shores of the ocean with a bridge of love and business opportunities to repopulate Settefrati and the splendid Comino Valley.
The basic idea of the project started from the text of the call for 'giving new roots to young people' and regenerating the villages in the phase of depopulation. But what to do in a country where there are no young people? How to think of bringing young people back to live in a hamlet at the end of a valley with a road that practically ends in the historic center?
The answer is: the young people from Settefrati who live abroad, the descendants of emigrants to whom we must give new stimuli and new emotions to return to establish ongoing relationships with their country of origin.
An intercultural, intergenerational, international and inclusive project of all the operators of excellence in the Comino Valley.
For two months, the Town Ambassadors of Settefrati, Tony Malizia from Canada, Antonia di Preta and Antonio Vitti Jr from the USA, coordinated by Claudia Bettiol of Discoverplaces met digitally trying to solve all the delicate issues that arose from this huge challenge.
Thus, the mayor Riccardo Frattaroli tells about the great work of these two past months:
'We worked by involving all the operators in the area in a project that affects the entire splendid Val di Comino. For me the Valley is like a daisy and every village is a petal, without one of these petals there is no flower. So, our project tried to solve a problem that all villages have by trying to overcome the territorial limits of Settefrati '.
The heart of the project are young people, and it will be three young people (an American, a Canadian and an Italian from the Comino Valley) who will come in three-month shifts to tell the past but above all the future of Settefrati and the Comino Valley. In the electric car of the municipality, they will tour each village and film the tangible and the intangible heritage of the processions and festivals, telling it on social networks and on different sites.
They will have to tell the historical and naturalistic beauty of Comino Valley in the different seasons, but also the life of the producers, the winegrowers, the shepherds and all the investment opportunities they will encounter.
Other successful local young entrepreneurs are available to insert these young people in the socio-economic life of the Valley, such as Maria Pia of the San Maurizio Farm with her Pecorino di Picinisco DOP, Enrico Rossi president of the Cabernet di Atina DOC Consortium and owner with his brother from the Masseria Barone Winery, and all the members of the Biodistretto della Valle di Comino.
They will then contact the owners of the closed houses in the historic center by presenting business plans for their renovation and inclusion in an assisted short-term rental circuit.
These young people will be joined by senior tutors in Italy but also in Canada and the USA who took part in the drafting of the project, contributing to the creation of this innovative model. In addition to the Town Ambassadors of Settefrati, Caroline di Cocco, former Ontario minister of culture and author of books on Italian emigration to Canada, has given her availability as a mentor for the documentation center.
In Val Comino the children will be supported by Claudia Bettiol of Discoverplaces (creator of the Town Ambassador Award) for strategy and communication, by Cesidio di Ciacca (a Scottish entrepreneur who invested in nearby Picinisco) for relations with possible foreign investors, and Davide del Prete (an Italian architect who has lived and worked in London for 20 years and who returned to smart working in Settefrati during Covid) for assistance in the regeneration of homes in the historic center.
A special mention goes to Enzo Borrelli with the Valle dell’Aquila resort, which for years has been promoting Settefrati as a destination of excellence, for his role not only in assisting young people but also in training international hospitality for locals.
From this little taste we understand the innovative scope of the idea and for this reason the mayor Riccardo Frattaroli called the nucleus of the Province of Frosinone of PNRR experts who were selected by the ministry. They came to Settefrati and the professionalism, but also the enthusiasm, of Roberta Centonze were essential to put in place all the pieces of the puzzle to give life to a unified design.
We have all worked to create a model that can be a point of reference on the Italian scene.
We will reveal other details a little at a time because there are so many little surprises to tell and all the great enthusiasm of the participants who threw themselves in body and soul to solve one of the problems of many Italian villages: that of not losing the heritage of love of the emigrants and their descendants.
And all this was also told to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which launched the Year of Tourism of the Roots.
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