Every day in via Mirabella, for the past 10 years, we have experienced first-hand what social innovation is. “Lately, our work has been focused on HubMed - says the president of Impact Hub Siracusa, Rosario Sapienza - the new activity developed as part of the Enisie project, in turn part of the cross-border cooperation program Interreg Italia-Malta: its goal is to support micro, small and medium sized enterprises to create a Mediterranean network. Despite having to close the Hub due to the pandemic, the work continued online by working with changemakers from Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Serbia and Kosovo. Interestingly enough, this digital segregation has helped us grow closer, and today we’re all equally close and distant, as never before, regardless of where we live. We discover ourselves to be different, but also alike, united by the great Mediterranean Sea and the urgent needs of its ecosystem. Above all, we are now, to all intents and purposes, a presence that’s both international and regional, whether online or in person.”
The Enisie Recovery Workshop is also one of the focuses of the task force: it is a free helpdesk for Sicilian companies that have suffered losses related to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic or that are facing new difficulties. In general, the biggest challenge for the team remains the regeneration of the social and economic fabric of Sicily, which it is facing by promoting social enterprise models through access to credit but also through corporate storytelling and by hunting around for - then carrying them out in daily practice - all those solutions that lead to business practises that respect the principles of sustainable development and social impact, and by activating shared participation processes from the bottom upwards.