Promoted by the Fondazione Edoardo Garrone, the new campus “ReStartApp per i cammini italiani” aims to foster the sustainable development, protection and use of mountain territory.
"Going to the mountains is going home", wrote the celebrated American naturalist John Muir, with the simplicity that distinguishes great minds. In Italy, more and more young people, as if answering an ancestral call, have decided to return home, to the highlands, far from the stress and alienation of the cities. The number of young people choosing to settle in the mountains in search of a future is indeed growing, in continuity with a past that seemed to have all but vanished.
The Apennines still have much to offer us, starting with an extraordinary network of walking routes, but they need skilled and passionate people. It is precisely to train these people and offer young people the opportunity to retrace their grandparents' journey in reverse and embrace their roots once more that "ReStartApp per i cammini italiani" was born — a free campus for business training, incubation and acceleration.
The project, conceived and promoted by the Fondazione Edoardo Garrone and realised in collaboration with Fondazione Cariplo, aims to foster the enhancement, promotion and sustainable development of the territories that lie along Italy's walking routes. The campus represents the continuation of previous editions, ReStartApp and ReStartAlp, and "will have Italy's walking routes as its common thread — that is, the national network of hiking trails of a naturalistic, historical and cultural character that are already accessible and usable", reads a press release from the Fondazione Edoardo Garrone.
Read also: Il futuro dell'Appennino, tra conservazione e integrazione
The campus for the revitalisation of the highlands is open to a maximum of ten participants under 40, who will be selected through a call for ideas — a kind of competition in which candidates will be chosen "on the basis of their business ideas and the actual contribution they can make to the revival and enhancement of the Apennines and the Alps". To take part, applicants must have a business idea, a business incorporated less than 18 months ago, or be the owner or partner of a business network, in the fields of agriculture, forestry management, agri-food and livestock farming, tourism, crafts and culture. Applications can be submitted on the ReStartApp portal by 18 April 2019.
The campus will take place in Premia, in the province of Verbano Cusio Ossola, and will last nine weeks, from 24 June to 30 September 2019 (with an intermediate break from classes from 3 August to 1 September). The programme includes four working methods: a teaching phase, delivered by lecturers and professionals from the main sectors of the mountain economy; a business creation and development workshop, aimed at properly structuring a business idea; one-week company placements, to experience first-hand the management of one of the productive businesses in the territories crossed by Italy's walking routes; and finally a testimonials phase, in which various speakers will share their personal or professional experience of life in mountain and rural settings.
A qualified team of lecturers, experts and professionals from the main sectors of the mountain economy will support participants in deepening and developing their entrepreneurial projects. The programme is validated by a network of authoritative partners, including: Club alpino italiano (Cai), Fondazione buon lavoro, Fondazione Symbola, Università della montagna, Legambiente, Alleanza mobilità dolce (A.mo.do.), Fondazione Cima, Uncem, Federbim and Federforeste, Altromercato and Pefc Italia. With the patronage of the Alpine Convention.
At the end of the activities, participants will be able to count on the remote support and guidance of the lecturers as they finalise their business plans. The three best projects, selected by a dedicated panel, will also be eligible for three prizes with a combined value of 60,000 euros provided by the Fondazione Edoardo Garrone. Our existence seems by now inextricably bound to cities, but the mountains can still offer challenges and opportunities to those who have the courage to seize them and set out on the journey.
