On Tuesday, May 5, the second meeting of Torino Social Impact’s Care and Proximity Community of Practice took place at Casa FARO, co-organized with Fondazione FARO and Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro, with the aim of exploring the experience of illness in relation to other forms of vulnerability, including poverty, isolation and social exclusion.

Opening the meeting, Lorena Di Maria for Torino Social Impact framed the Community of Practice within the broader mission of the Compassionate City project: to foster a shared pathway that engages local organizations around the theme of solidarity, with the goal of building stronger communities and increasing awareness of different forms of fragility. At the intersection with the experience of illness, the initiative also seeks to address broader vulnerabilities such as poverty, isolation, marginalization, mental illness and inequality, contributing to the development of a truly compassionate city.

In her speech, Marina Sozzi of Fondazione FARO introduced a vision of health that goes beyond the mere absence of illness, defining it instead as the set of conditions that enable people to fulfill their needs, aspirations and quality of life.

From this perspective, the compassionate city emerges as a model capable of supporting fragilities and their intersections by addressing two key challenges: on one hand, inequalities in life expectancy, access to care and end-of-life experiences; on the other, the need to promote a cultural shift that recognizes care not solely as a healthcare issue, but as a shared responsibility among citizens, institutions and the broader community.

Following this, Alessandra Gianfrate of Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro presented the workshop phase, outlining the criteria for the collective identification of a pilot neighborhood where an initial concrete experiment could be launched. Shared parameters included the presence of visible vulnerabilities, active local resources, accessibility, availability of physical spaces, population diversity and political-institutional feasibility.

During the session, participating organizations engaged in dialogue based on their respective expertise and knowledge, discussing priority services and initiatives to be developed within the Compassionate City framework while considering specific local needs.

The meeting laid the groundwork for a broader path aimed at defining replicable guidelines and intervention models capable of translating the Compassionate City paradigm into practical action, starting from neighborhoods and territorial networks.

Over the coming months, the Care and Proximity Community of Practice will continue as a space for research, listening and co-design, helping to build a city where care becomes a shared social infrastructure.