“designing life and actions from a systemic point of view, in which everything affects everything.”
Manuela has worked in international cooperation as an ethnographer and facilitator in projects for sustainable local development: today she is engaged in applied research, environmental education and management of participatory processes and co-creation. A social researcher, she is interested in social and economic transformations and participatory processes.
She works on issues of community development and environmental education. All her work and personal projects try to take root and germinate from below. She deals with these issues in the field working with Impact HUB Syracuse, the APS Aula Permanente of Ecologia, the Permacultura Sicilia Network and the Transition Italia Network.
“We have the advantage of learning from the mistakes made in the past: schools are a new and very important starting point”
Emma is an environmental consultant for the Public Administration, researcher at ISPRA and expert at the Ministry of the Environment for legal profiles of environmental damage and remediation.
Mixing competence and creativity she involves with her work all stakeholders in environmental matters: she combines a traditional legal background, acquired at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, with an economic approach to law. Environmental research has then connected her with European policies: anticipating the times, she has aligned herself with the evolution of the concepts of sustainable development and circular economy.
Her inclination to action and the development of good practices applied to companies and PA are the basis of her work: Syracuse is a laboratory where she tries to apply these good environmental practices to develop significant experiences. The cultural and economic backwardness of this land is not a handicap for her, but a challenge for the future.
“the eleventh commandment of our times: do not waste – food, talents, lives.”
Barbara works in the protection of human rights at the international level in the area of migration, conflicts and the fight against human trafficking.
Graduated in International and Diplomatic Sciences in Trieste, she studied International Relations at Johns Hopkins University, Bologna Center, and Kulturwissenschaft at the University of Vienna. She has worked for international organizations e.g. OSCE, ICMPD, UNODC, living in Bosnia, Austria and Denmark, Malawi and Yemen. In October 2014 he started 11eleven, a social integration and inclusion project aimed at young Italians and foreigners. Born as a social cooperative, the group manages the cafeteria-restaurant located within Scenario Pubblico, a well-known international choreographic center in Catania: here food is a metaphor for the encounter between people and cultures and eleven the eleventh commandment of our times: not waste – food, talents, lives.
“an international cultural project to involve a transversal audience”.
Daniele is a mechanical engineer who has chosen to dedicate himself to art and communication (but without forgetting mathematics!). He has been working as a graphic designer for over 10 years and has had important experiences in the field of visual art. Author and director, he works together with choreographer (and wife) Irénée Blin. He is currently working on an international cultural project able to involve a wide and transversal audience.
“Local development and social and cultural economy, through collaborative public policy”
Alessia is an art economist who deals with local development. She works as a territorialist for the Department of Development and Cohesion Policies and is a member of MACLab, Laboratory of Arts and Culture Management at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.
She experiments connections, mixes and short circuits between cultural production, social innovation and local development with the APS The Hub Sicilia and the cooperative community Farmidabile, born from the experience of Farm Cultural Park.
“promoting the culture of social innovation through studies on communities of practice.”
Anthropologist of Roman origin, since 2008 she works in the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Catania and collaborates with Impact HUB in Sicily. Her research interests include education, intercultural governance at school and post-disaster reconstruction policies and practices. She researches emergency regimes and disaster risk management policies.
In recent years she has addressed environmental crises and social movements, in Sri Lanka on the edge of Yala National Park and in Sicily in the Syracuse Petrochemical Centre. Grown-up for fourteen years in a hamlet, she has always tried to combine her passion for research with social commitment and cultural promotion.
Vincenzo deals with service design and social innovation and also with graphic facilitation. During his professional training process and work experience between Rome, London and Lisbon, Vincenzo came into contact with the world of Impact Hub, first in England and then around Europe, before returning to Sicily in April 2013.
Vincenzo is founder and network catalyst at commongroundpeople.
Claudia deals with written and digital communication: she takes care of the construction and updating of the web projects of numerous associations, projects and companies and takes care of the editorial contents for the community and the clients, with a special focus on usability and accessibility of interfaces. She puts the user at the center and designs solutions together with the client, starting from information architectures to get to the normalization of the language.
