Dear Friends,
Two months have passed and, meanwhile, I hope you all enjoyed some holidays.
Not everywhere we have sunny summers, but, this is usually a period where, if possible, we try to leave problems outside, looking for some stimulus, new motivations.
Motivation is, in effect, what we always aim and try to transmit to all of you through our initiatives and, I have to say that we see the first results of this “online space” for thoughts. Motivation is also an important part of our spirit; it is an emotion that guide us in thinking how to structure the best solutions for our common challenges through different forms of innovative collaboration.
The cover picture is what I wanted to reach, since I see in that image different points which unite the entire Family. Our Projects, in the name of the Fund for Regional Cooperation and on behalf of the entire Fund Operator and Donors, recently received a little gift. A keychain representing the logo of the Fund itself. But this is not the important news. The news is that they have been prepared (cleaned one by one and placed into their boxes) by some people I like to define as “special”. I usually don’t like definitions when talking about people; but I also know that I don’t like to talk about “disabled”, since they are, for sure, able to do things. Sometimes in a better way than us and always wearing a smile. We also wanted to give you the idea that behind money, behind the funding activities, there is the motivation to demonstrate that everything we do, big or small, worth it.
And, especially, we also have a Project, known as “Inclusion through sport for children with developmental disabilities”: they prepared something for us totally in line with what we want to transmit with our picture. Last but not least, stay tuned since I know they will tell us some good success stories in the near future. This is, for our Fund, fundamental. Fragile categories, however you consider, they should be defined or refer to, are at the heart of our mission. Not only because they deserve a special treatment. But, since they do deserve it, also because they are an active part of our societies and they do have a role, as we do.
Our Friend and Expert Tom, not surprisingly, is telling us more about societies. His article is not dealing directly with the above mentioned “fragile categories” but let me just quote him directly with his self-explanatory words: «A vibrant, thriving, inclusive and pluralistic civil society is an essential pre-condition for democracy».
We see, today, unfortunate cases of dangers with respect to democratic societies… but this Mag is not the space to talk about politics.
I prefer to think about a possible link among the wellbeing of our societies, democracy and the rights of some specific categories (a link that I am sure we are all thinking of, in this framework, when structuring our goals and related activities). And, these days, we have in front of us a show which is giving space to “special people”; I am talking about the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Paralympic games, since I like to see in sport another good example of collaboration and cooperation, a way, a mean for better societies. And above all, how many different countries we see there?
Such as our Fund for Regional Cooperation: different flags, different countries, different specific activities but some unique common goals.
And, talking about our Fund’s Family, I don’t want to forget that we just enlarged it, with a new member which will contribute to the achievement of objectives that aim, in fact, at the common goals I mentioned earlier.
As our Marga is announcing in this issue, indeed, we contracted the last (but for sure not least) Project: it is COMPETENCE and it aims to improve the quality of public services provided by municipalities through capacity building of the civil servants. Let us see which will be our Family’s participation with respect to the coming European Week of Regions and Cities of this 2021!!!!
Thanking all the rest of the Projects who helped us in creating this new issue, I am happy to see that our “machine” is starting to run. This issue of our Mag is mixing “keychains” with nature, with agriculture and wine, with concrete proposals to fight radicalisation and violent extremism, and again the empowerment of women and circular economy benefits and… some other interesting contributions.
I leave you to a reading that I hope will be enjoyable and I look forward to seeing you at the next issue, some news is about to arrive, together with an important “save the date”!
Gian Luca Bombarda,
Fund Director
