PRESS RELEASE (11/27/2015)
La “Ramella” Nursing Home” by Loano received as a gift from the president of the Ortoriviera cooperative, Alexander Allary, the first chard harvest of the new social enterprise.
Established in May 2015, the social agricultural cooperative represents the final stage of the European Social Fund-funded project “Kilometri 0,” which involved the participation of 13 municipalities, 4 cooperatives, 2 training centers, a cultural foundation and local offices dealing with social issues, such as ASL, Sert.
Social agriculture is at the heart of the initiative, which aims to initiate the recovery of abandoned land, the promotion of typical products and, last but not least, the rehabilitation and reemployment of workers belonging to protected categories and disadvantaged segments of the population.
The project saw several phases: after the training phase, the operators were placed in work experience in local companies and for six months they worked alongside experts and put into practice what they had learned during the courses. This led to the birth of the Ortoriviera cooperative, which since May has been working on a 6,000-square-meter private land in Borghetto Santo Spirito, cultivating D.O.P. basil for cutting in the summer period and chard In the winter period.
In the cooperative, whose president is the are currently employed 3 operators, one with a full-time contract and two with a part-time contract, who come from the work experiences of the “Kilometri 0” project and belong to the protected categories.
“We thank the newly established social cooperative. Ortoriviera - says the’Councillor for Social Services Luca Lettieri - For the gift of the products of the earth. This harvest is the fruit of a challenging path that attempts to provide answers to complex problems such as the abandonment of land cultivation, the increase in “adult” unemployment and the crisis of quality production. We hope that the “Kilometri 0” project, as well as the birth of the Ortoriviera cooperative can represent a positive experience with know-how to be replicated in other realities and areas of the regional territory.”
