The Sican Network: partners
Of disadvantage, virtue!
In Prizzi the hostel for all
where the future is built
The project is dedicated
to people with disabilities
and socially disadvantaged
For years it was just a dream; now at theTerra@Terra youth hostel in the Filaga hamlet of Prizzi, pilgrims from all over Europe arrive, especially pilgrims on the Via Francigena and Erasmus students.
The watchword is inclusion: the hostel carved out of the premises of a 1970s school, made available by the Municipality of Prizzi, a partner in the initiative, is an integral part of a larger project featuring people with disabilities or socioculturally disadvantaged.
Not just a hostel, then. Terra@Terra is a social development project focused on the territory; a territory made available to people and where people are available to the territory: this is the mission. Carrying it out are the volunteers of the“Solidarity” Odv Association of Prizzi, committed in favor of disadvantaged people and with particular attention to people with disabilities; the members of the “Padre Pio” Social Cooperative of Prizzi, who work in the field of assistance to minors, the disabled, the elderly and are committed to the social-work inclusion of disadvantaged people; and the volunteers of the“Al Plurale APS” Association of Casa Santa Erice in the Trapani area, who promote the enhancement of the talents of young people.
Twenty-five beds divided into three dormitories, in the Prizzi Youth Hostel, in order to provide them with greater independence, the ground floor is dedicated to people with motor disabilities. The dining hall, where typical local dishes can be enjoyed, features a menu that follows seasonality, using only zero-kilometer products, or even “zero meter,” since the Terra@Terra youth hostel has its own beautifulsocial garden.
“The facility,” says Gisella Collura, contact person for the Padre Pio Social Cooperative, a partner in the Terra@Terra project and Sicani Villages, “has been open for two years: we opened it on June 4, 2022. It is an incredible meeting and exchange place: those who pass through here leave a mark. Last year, for example, a group of young students in Italy on Erasmus, from Northern Europe, Greece and even Ukraine, helped us beautify the interior with some murals, others made benches out of pallets. And then, there are to explore the surroundings with organized excursions, in which we involve local nature guides.”
In short, as the project manifesto emphasizes, Terra@Terra is love for the land and care for people; but, above all, a unique way to get to know the heart of the Sicani, that good land that has in human capital its spearhead.
At the Terra@Terra youth hostel, meetings and book presentations are also organized, such as the one that at the beginning of the activity featured actor Totò Cascio, a Sicilian from Palazzo Adriano who became famous with “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”; now suffering from retinitis pigmentosa with macular edema, he recounted his artistic and human story in the book “La gloria e la prova”: “A little great man,” says Gisella Collura, “a symbol of a redeeming sensibility.
Terra@Terra is also a Youth Space with wi-fi connection and PC stations, where people can meet, work, study, take courses and workshops organized ad hoc; it is housed in the former Prizzi train station. “The Terra@Terra project,” says Gisella Collura, “is financed by the Department of Youth Policy and Universal Civil Service of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and our goal is to involve more and more, at the moment there are six, girls and boys under 35 with sociocultural disadvantage in work activities. We are optimistic: for this summer, several groups have already booked their stay in our hostel.”
Text by Angela Mannino
