Access to European funding for businesses and organizations in the social economy is today one of the main challenges to be faced in promoting the sector. It is from this need that the initiative HUB European projects for the social economy was born, started in 2023 in collaboration with Weco Social Enterprise thanks to the contribution of the Chamber of Commerce of Turin and the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation.

On Thursday, March 28th, the first training day dedicated to the CERV Program was held at the Cottino Social Impact Campus, bringing together 18 people from 10 partner organizations of Turin Social Impact interested in deepening the four main pillars, objectives, and calls of the program.

The CERV Program “Citizens, equality, rights, and values”

The program aims to support and develop open societies, based on rights, democratic, fair, and inclusive founded on the rule of law. This includes promoting a dynamic and autonomous civil society that encourages democratic, civic, and social participation of citizens and nurtures the rich diversity of European society based on the values, history, and memory we share.

The CERV program is structured around four pillars:

1. Equality, rights, and gender equality: promotion of rights, non-discrimination, and equality; integration of gender policies and non-discrimination at all levels
2. Citizen involvement and participation: promotion of citizen involvement and participation in the democratic life of the Union, exchanges between citizens of different Member States, and knowledge of common European history
3. Daphne: combating violence, including gender-based violence and violence against children
4. Union values: protection and promotion of Union values.

A day of capacity building and workshops on open calls

During the morning, Maria Chiara Pizzorno, senior expert at Weco Social Enterprise and evaluator of numerous European programs, led an infosession on the program. In addition, Chiara Mantegazza and Matteo Pizzi from the Danish Refugee Council shared their experience in CERV project design and grant management with participants, in a peer-to-peer learning approach.

In the afternoon, organizations, divided into working groups, designed projects on the open calls “To prevent and combat gender-based violence and violence against children CERV-2024-DAPHNE” and “European Remembrance CERV-2024-CITIZENS-REM”, which will expire in May 2024.

Many themes were proposed: from recalling the historical memory of migratory flows in European cities, to preventing gender-based violence against men at risk of reoffending, to promoting youth awareness of the European Union of peoples, rights, and democracy.

A fruitful exchange of ideas, tools, and skills to enhance the European project design capacity of the TSI ecosystem!