Aboard a van to redevelop Sicilian villages
For decades, Sicilian villages have been experiencing a drastic decline in population due to the brain drain. Many young people residing in inland Sicily, given the lack of services or job opportunities, choose to migrate to the large metropolises in northern Italy. This is precisely why the Van Working Tour, a project that aims to redevelop small Italian municipalities, making them suitable destinations for smart working.
A project with a focus on smart working
A van trip through the most authentic villages of Trinacria. In Sicily lands the Van Working Tour, the brainchild of Samuel Lo Gioco. Supporting the event is. Assoprovider, which promotes broadband provision in market failure areas.
Samuel himself will lead the tour, thanks to the support of Tedtrip, a startup by Matteo Fici e Giusi Carioto. The Game as of Oct. 13 is touring among the best Sicilian stages with its smart worker van made by the specialized company Caravanbacci.
The project aims to raise awareness of the most talked-about issues of the past two years: smart working e South Working. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced millions of Italians indoors. Companies have resorted to the practical solution of the remote work, allowing its employees to return to their residences. Many have appreciated the new type of employment, preferring the ability to manage their own time, working from a location other than the company headquarters..
This event certainly marked a turning point in the world of work, but failing are the still unsuitable conditions in some southern Italian villages.
Before we begin: what does Smart Working and South Working really mean?
Smart Working Is one of the most “used” topics of the last period. It is probably abused, juxtaposing with it the sole meaning of remote work. We actually discover that this compound word, through “smart” i.e., agile, aims to represent a working model characterized by multiple smart methods, which facilitate a company’s progress. Prominent among them is the remote working.
This type of work operates as a symbiosis between owner and employee. By having more work flexibility, the person finds a balance that improves performance and consequently increases the quality of the activity. Reaping the rewards is the employer.
That’s where the South Working, as well as the opportunity for thousands of southern Italians to be able to live and experience the land they love without having to migrate north. This redevelops those areas in the South that are marginalized but have considerable potential.
What are the goals of the Van Working Tour?
Van Working Tour is looking for the most beautiful places in Italy where you can live and work remotely, enjoying what the area offers. The project, in addition to smart work, promotes a experiential tourism that enhances the historical and cultural heritage of the Peninsula, with a focus on sustainability. In fact, the van used for the tour is completely autonomous electrically, through the installation of special solar panels.
It will be Lo Gioco that will choose the most remote and enchanting places in Sicily, selecting the most suitable villages for the smart worker according to defined criteria:
- availability of functional apartments,
- quality of public systems,
- presence of aggregation points for
coworking, - excellent connection.
It’s also important how hamlet residents include the smart worker within the community, making him or her feel part of it and enhancing relationships now lost in large Italian metropolises.
Centuripe, Sciacca, Sutera, Mussomeli, Petralia Soprana, Naro, Assoro, Marsala, Montalbano Elicona, Santa Rita, Castiglione di Sicilia, Gangi, Caccamo, and Sambuca di Sicilia. These are the villages that Samuel will visit and document during the tour, showing the facets of a Sicily that deserves to be redeveloped through sustainable tourism.
The ultimate goal will be to foster a “return of brains“. The goal of the initiative is to repopulate, through smart working, those areas of Sicily that have lost many qualified young people. To learn more, all that remains is to follow the link.
An increasingly sustainable future through green tourism
Although on the one hand the Van Working Tour promotes the Sicilian territory and aims to redevelop our villages, the commitment of Sicilians is necessary to progress toward an increasingly green tourism development (we discuss a clear example of green tourism in this article). Only in this way will progress be made, especially by taking advantage of government aid aimed at tourism.
In this regard, we report the news from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism. As a result of the signed decrees, as much as 30 million euros earmarked for 37 southern villages. These include the small Sicilian municipalities of Castiglione di Sicilia, Vizzini, Sutera, Ferla, Brolo, Trolo, Troina, Sambuca di Sicilia, Cammarata and Chiaramonte Gulfi.
By protecting and investing in Sicily’s cultural heritage, we are automatically giving a better future to this wonderful land. (Source: Journal of Sicily)
Luca Russo