Re-generations: A Pact for the Future of Urban Outskirts

10 November 2025

Kids playing



Three educational centers in the urban areas of Rome, Naples, and Milan are becoming laboratories to fight educational poverty, foster social inclusion, and promote new skills - including in the field of energy.

Urban outskirts are complex ecosystems — places of contradictions, often rich with untapped potential. Working in these contexts means helping to trigger processes of transformation: regenerating relationships, opportunities, and spaces. This is the philosophy behind “Re-generations – Building Paths of Beauty and Redemption with Young People in Urban Outskirts”, a project promoted by Plenitude together with Eni Foundation.

The project is an integral part of Plenitude’s non-profit commitment, which focuses on social inclusion and combating educational and energy poverty. It is a concrete initiative that reflects Plenitude’s mission, as a Benefit Corporation, to create shared value in the areas and communities where it operates by supporting initiatives aimed at sustainable and inclusive local development.

The initiative aims to provide a concrete response to the educational and social hardship of over 400 young people aged 14 to 18, engaging them in programs designed to prevent school dropout and promote employability. Through collaboration with three organizations deeply rooted in their communities, a multidimensional intervention model is being built - one that combines psychosocial support with training, therapeutic, educational, and rehabilitation programs.

Rome: Beauty as a Tool for Redemption

In the vast eastern outskirts of the capital, between the 6th and 7th Municipalities, the association Fonte di Ismaele operates in a social fabric marked by poverty and marginalization. Here, the “Re-generations” project reaches around 200 minors, creating a socio-educational community that welcomes young people and offers them workshop-based programs centered on the concept of “care” through beauty.

The participants take part in mosaic art projects to redevelop metro stations, gardening workshops to create sensory gardens in green areas, and training courses in digital skills such as video-making, photography, and graphic design.

  • Since our founding, we have launched urban green protection and art workshops with a dual objective: to create works that enrich the common good while also repairing harm caused by antisocial behavior or offenses. The same young people are then entrusted with maintaining the renovated spaces a tangible way to experience listening, active citizenship, and the care of what they have helped to create.
  • Lucia Ercoli - President of Fonte di Ismaele

Naples: Building Community in the Rione Sanità

In the Rione Sanità neighborhood - an area with a complex history and high population density - the Fondazione di Comunità San Gennaro E.F. works to counter high school dropout rates. The project supports 100 minors through tailor-made Individual Educational Plans (IEPs) that include academic support, art workshops, sports, guidance, and pathways toward employment.

Each participant is supported by a“proximity educator”, a key figure capable of recognizing needs in informal contexts and activating a support network involving schools, social services, and families. Paid work-placement programs are also provided for minors under judicial or civil measures, promoting personal responsibility and independence while offering a concrete alternative to illegal paths.

  • Creating an educating community means turning the neighborhood into a place that teaches through every space, relationship, and gesture - giving young people not only concrete opportunities but also the awareness that the future is not something to endure, but to build together. It’s not enough for a single educator, teacher, or operator to act alone. What’s needed is a stable alliance among schools, families, associations, parishes, institutions, social enterprises, and citizens - all recognizing themselves as active and responsible parts of the educational process.
  • Melania Cimmino – Director of the San Gennaro Community Foundation, Philanthropic Organization

Milan: Responding to Psycho-Social Fragility

In the western outskirts of Milan, in the Lampugnano–San Siro area, the social cooperative Varietà addresses a complex social reality and the growing psychological distress among adolescents. The project, which involves about 100 young people, supports the activities of a day center and a residential child neuropsychiatry facility for minors requiring integrated educational, rehabilitation, and therapeutic support.

The pathway follows precise steps: from welcoming and assessing individual abilities, to academic support, and eventually to autonomy-building and job-readiness training — with each participant accompanied by a dedicated tutor.

  • The educational and rehabilitative world connected to child neuropsychiatry is broad and multifaceted: it intertwines clinical and healthcare dimensions with pedagogical, cultural, and everyday ones. Education is not only something we ‘do,’ but something that constantly ‘happens’ through all experiences of life. To identify and respond to the complex fragilities of today’s adolescents, it’s essential to work with an integrated, reflective approach that brings together educational, healthcare, and social knowledge.
  • Samuele Casartelli – Pedagogue, Board Member of the Social Cooperative Varietà, and Vice President of the Cooperative Borea

Energy as a Common Thread

A cross-cutting and distinctive feature of the “Re-generations” project is the focus on improving the energy efficiency of the partner organizations’ spaces. In 2026, energy retrofitting will be carried out in all three educational centers. This intervention has a dual purpose: on one hand, it reduces operating costs, freeing up resources for educational activities; on the other, it improves the quality of the spaces, making them healthier, more welcoming, and functional.

Across the three cities, photovoltaic systems will be installed and lighting systems upgraded to low-consumption LED technology. In Milan, an air-conditioning system will also be installed to ensure a comfortable and healthy environment for children during the summer months.

Beyond the physical improvements, the project has a strong educational component. In Rome, for example, a “Course on Energy” will teach young participants about renewable energy sources, transforming the intervention into an opportunity to acquire new skills.

A Commitment to Local Communities

The “Ri-generazioni” project, lasting 18 months and concluding in December 2026, aims to serve as a replicable model through research activities designed to measure its impact and identify effective solutions to support vulnerable minors, while documenting its practices.

It represents a tangible commitment that reflects Plenitude’s mission, as a Benefit Corporation, to create shared value within the territories and communities where it operates - supporting initiatives that promote sustainable and inclusive local development.

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