The community welcomes people going through psycho-physical distress, including people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and people under house arrest or serving a sentence while in treatment for addiction. Alongside educational support and services that build everyday autonomy, working the land together is one of the ways the community tries to help people rebuild relationships and a sense of purpose.
Leaving a residential care programme and returning to ordinary life is a difficult step, and one made harder without a way to earn an income or put newly learned skills to practical use. A bridge between the structure of community life and full reintegration into society, one that offers both a role and real economic support, addresses a gap that would otherwise be left to the person to face largely alone.
The project
Terra Nostra Shop gives people nearing the end of their time in the community a concrete role: selling the produce they have grown themselves through the foundation's shop, with the proceeds going towards their own social reintegration. The project also renovates the shop itself and, building on the skills and relationships developed through the community's solidarity purchase group, works towards setting up an agricultural enterprise run in part by the same people who once grew its produce as part of their recovery.
The aim is not to separate work from the therapeutic path but to extend it: giving people a genuine role in producing and selling the land's products, supporting the wider food and wine supply chain, and caring for the land itself, all as part of a lasting route back into work and social life.
Who the project is for
The project's direct beneficiaries are up to 6 people nearing the end of their care and reintegration path, who take part in producing and selling the community's products through the shop and, eventually, the planned agricultural enterprise.
Project name: TERRA NOSTRA SHOP
Proposing organisation: Fondazione La Locanda del Gigante
Area of intervention: Inclusion & Social Development
Country: Italy