Neighbourhood Houses Case del Quartiere (CdQ) Torino (Italy) EU-MIA RESEARCH REPORT Emanuela Roman FIERI January 2014 www.itcilo.org Neighbourhood Houses Case del Quartiere (CdQ) Torino (Italy) EU-MIA RESEARCH REPORT Emanuela Roman FIERI January 2014 The materials in this publication are for information purposes only. While ITCILO, FIERI and COMPAS endeavour to ensure accuracy and completeness of the contents of this publication, the views, findings and content of this discussion paper are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the official position of ITCILO, FIERI and COMPAS. © 2013 International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin (ITCILO) Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull’Immigrazione (FIERI) Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford This discussion paper is financed by the European Commission and published in the context of the project “An integrated research and cooperative learning project to reinforce integration capacities in European Cities-EU-MIA, EC Agreement Nr HOME/2011/EIFX/CA/1996”. The content of this discussion paper does not reflect the official opinion of the European Commission. Index 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 6 2. Operational context ................................................................................................. 7 2.1 Key characteristics: demographic mix, socio-economic indicators and main challenges ............. 7 2.2 Policy context: local policy community and key interventions ............................................ 9 3 The Functioning Practice (FP): Neighbourhood Houses – Case del Quartiere (CdQ) ............... 10 3.1 Objectives and methodology ................................................................................. 10 3.2 Partners and networks ........................................................................................ 13 3.3 Chronology and funding of activities ....................................................................... 14 3.4 Outcomes ...................................................................................................... 23 3.5 Learning and evaluation ..................................................................................... 25 3.6 The next steps ................................................................................................. 25 4 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 27 Bibliography and Sources ................................................................................................ 28 Annexes ....................................................................................................................... 30 Annex 1 – Interviews ................................................................................................. 30 Annex 2 – Map of Turin with the Neighbourhood Houses ....................................................... 31 1. Introduction EU-MIA (European Migrant Integration Academy) is a research-based co-operative learning and training initiative targeting and directly involving local stakeholders responsible for the development and implementation of local level integration policies in selected European cities. The project is structured in three phases: 1. Background research, to create a repertoire of promising practices in the field of integration at city and neighbourhood level and selection of 10 Functioning Practices (FP) from throughout the European Union. 2. Fieldwork missions in the cities where the selected Functioning Practices are located, based on in-depth interviews with local stakeholders and the production of short videos. 3. Development of a cooperative learning kit based on the research component of this project which forms the basis of the training initiative Migrant Integration Academy. We do not look for perfect models of integration policy which can be adopted wholesale across different city contexts, but we believe there is, across Europe, a wealth of successful initiatives carried out at city level and in partnership with civil society. Starting from this assumption, we define Functioning Practices (FP) not as the best practices on integration in Europe but as practices relating to successful initiatives that make an outstanding contribution to manage issues at hand. The selection of Functioning Practices was based on three tools: • literature review and web browsing; • consultation of experts and city networks; • nominations (including a majority of self-nominations) by local stakeholders through a Call for Practices. These were the criteria used for the selection of Functioning Practices1: a. innovative and successful measures in any fields which have clear goals in terms of integration of people with a migrant background, be they migrant-focused or not; b. measures carried out at local level; c. measures involving public authorities; d. live actions or recently closed actions, i.e. practices concluded within the past two years, and consolidated measures that have been implemented for at least two years. The following sections present the Functioning Practice ‘Neighbourhood Houses – Case del Quartiere (CdQ)’ implemented in Turin, Italy. Empirical findings are based on analysis of official documents as well as interviews with key actors, stakeholders and beneficiaries.2 The report is practically oriented given that its 1 For further details see: http://www.eu-mia.eu/ 2 Please refer to Annexe 1 for a list of interviews. 6 aim is to foster exchanges of functioning practices, learning from experience and development of knowledge- based policies: it analyses how the practice concretely works and assesses the main achievements and assets, on the one hand, and pitfalls and difficulties, on the other hand. The report ends with a look towards possible follow up and transfers. 2. Operational context In order to provide an understanding of the institutional framework that Turin’s Neighbourhood Houses are part of, this section aims to provide an outline of the demographic and socio-economic context as well as the main stakeholders of the local policy community, focusing on the interplay between integration and urban regeneration policies. 2.1 Key characteristics: demographic mix, socio-economic indicators and main challenges Turin is an important Italian city which historically has been a major industrial and manufacturing centre and thus a symbol of Italian industrialisation. For this reason, ever since the 19th century, Turin has been a ‘city of immigration,’ attracting workers and families firstly from the surrounding rural areas, later (especially after the World War II) from Southern Italy and more recently (starting in the 1970s and more intensely since the 1980s and 1990s) from foreign countries. Notwithstanding the de-industrialisation process and the resulting shift from industrial production to service industries which, since the 1990s, have progressively changed Turin’s socio-economic system and city planning, the immigration phenomenon has never stopped and the number of foreign residents living in Turin has continually been increasing. On the 31st December 2012 there were 140,365 foreign residents in Turin, i.e. 15.4% of the whole population (911,823 inhabitants). As a proof of the recent years’ slowly but constantly increasing trend, in 2010 this percentage was 14.2%, in 2011 14.8%, and in May 2013 it was approximately 16%. Still, if we consider the whole decade 2002-2012, we will notice that the number of foreign residents increased rather rapidly (+ 10%) since in 2002 they were 46,393, i.e. 5.4% of the whole population.3 As concerns countries of origin, on the 31st December 2012, 56.8% of the foreigners living in Turin were third-country nationals (79,746) and 43.2% were EU citizens (60,619). It must be noted that out of the latter, 55,731 citizens come from Romania: in fact Romanians represent almost 40% of the total amount of foreigners in Turin. The second most numerous migrant community consists of Moroccan citizens (20,326 people – 14-5%) and the third national community is the Peruvian one (9,491 people – 6.8%). Other relevant countries of origin are: China (4.7%), Albania (4.3%), Moldova (3.4%), Egypt (3.3%), 3 Ufficio Statistica Comune di Torino, http://www.comune.torino.it/stranieri-nomadi/stranieri/torino/dati.htm; Silvana Fantini (ed.), “La popolazione straniera a Torino nel 2011. Dati generali - La componente adolescenziale”, in Osservatorio Interistituzionale sugli stranieri in provincia di Torino. Rapporto 2011, Città di Torino - Servizio Statistica e Toponomastica - Ufficio Pubblicazioni, 2011, 83-85, http://www.comune.torino.it/statistica/osservatorio/stranieri/2011/pdf/06_la_ popolazione_straniera_a_torino_nel_2011.pdf; http://www.comune.torino.it/informacasa/studi_statistiche/processi_demografici/stranieri_torino.shtml. 7 Nigeria (2.8%), Philippines (2.5%), Brazil (1.5%) and Tunisia (1.2%).4 On the whole, migrants living in Turin come from more than 150 different countries.5 Foreign residents are differently spread over the territory of the city and are mainly concentrated in certain neighbourhoods, also depending on their nationality. As described in the following sections, for the EU-MIA project we chose to focus our attention on three neighbourhood houses that are located in circoscrizioni6 characterised by extremely different demographic and socio-economic features, especially