Casa Comune in Naples

The idea comes from the relationship with FoQus Foundation, with its Director Renato Quaglia and its President Rachele Furfaro.

FOQUS has implemented an extensive program of urban, social and educational regeneration ai Spanish Quarters of Naples. Here in the sixteenth-century ex-monastery, which it has restored and re-functionalized, FOQUS has inaugurated a nursery school, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, houses training institutions, businesses and productive activities that have triggered a profound process of change one of the toughest neighborhoods in Europe. In 2016 FOQUS inaugurated Argo, qualification center aimed at children, teenagers, young people with cognitive disabilities and their families, with specialized activities aimed at improving the individual and social skills of the users.

The idea of doing more for those kids was born from Argo's experience: it's the project "The Common House”, which goes beyond simple assistance, foreseeing a path of progressive housing autonomy and a gradual integration into the productive world.

"The Common House" will be built over the next 18 months following the regeneration of an abandoned public building, which will host thehousing for people with disabilities cognitive and will be the place for their starting work. In fact, the project also includes the creation of a laboratory for artisanal production of chocolate bars, which can then be marketed for the benefit of the young people with disabilities who produced them, reinforcing their path to autonomy also from a working perspective. The aim is to offer these kids aopportunities for independent living, leveraging their potential and resources and experimenting with an alternative housing solution to community and family life.

Beautiful project, but how to finance it?

Instead of resorting to traditional funding sources, such as philanthropy or public funding, FOQUS decides to experiment with that innovative form of funding that goes by the name of social impact investing.

Call about it Fondazione Etica, who has already experienced them in Tuscany with the Luci nel Parco project, while Guber Bank offers to participate in the project as a financial entity.

Taking a cue from the "solidarity titles" introduced by law 106/2016, Guber offers to private savers, through the online platform “Deposito102”, the opening of an escrow account at 18 months, whose remuneration is double:

• on the one hand, a interest rate equal to the annual gross 1% (with duty paid by the Bank) in favor of the depositor;
• on the other, the concrete contribution to the realization of the social impact project “La Casa Comune”, through the recognition to FOQUS, by Guber, of an amount equal to 0.50% per year of the tied up sums.

THE subscribers will be able to monitor the evolution of the latter through the constant reporting, on the Deposito102 website, which Guber will publish on the basis of the evidence sent by the FOQUS Foundation.