The project Be an Influencer! Is part of a growing collective frame of feelings of abandonment and isolation, especially among the most vulnerable ones, and of a growing worsening of economic conditions in many sectors of the population, with a 1 million increase of poor people in the national territory due to the Covid-19 emergency, according to a Coldiretti study.

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This led to an increase of 3,7 million of people being in the need of food aid, determining an approximately 40% rise of requests for food aid from Caritas and Banco Alimentare.

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Indeed, the project was developed to respond urgently and in a timely manner to this social challenge, which will persist long-term and, therefore, needs a broad, widespread, and well-structured dissemination of good practices of solidarity, in order to identify answers and solutions to the social and economic crises. More in detail, the project focuses on the local context of the Città Metropolitana di Bologna, where many high-risk situations are present, mainly in the working-class districts which host low-income people characterized by a strong phenomenon of social exclusion.   

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The growing need for support from the most vulnerable sectors of the society, such as disabled people, elderly people, and unemployed, should not be overlooked, as it is estimated that they are going to inevitably rise due to this crisis which, according to Confindustria Emilia, is going to determine a decrease in turnover between 14 and 18 billion for the businesses located in the provinces of Bologna, Modena, and Ferrara. The current situation – faced by all of Europe – is revealing the potential inherent in solidarity.

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Many people are facing the Covid-19 emergency as a drastic change in their lives. In this tragic context, many people strived to be useful to the community, by offering great enthusiasm and investing resources to sustain actions, projects, and people who are on the frontline in the fight against the pandemic.

Therefore, recognising solidarity as a tool for social cohesion and support of the most vulnerable sectors of our societies, allows citizens to connect with those human aspects that are often forgotten in times of non-emergency.

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PRESERVING THE STRENGTH OF SOLIDARITY even when the strongest emergency is over is one of the objectives of the project “Be an Influencer!”, which uses digital tools to activate young people in a challenge of local solidarity, in the Città Metropolitana di Bologna. 

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The main objective is to provide innovative good practices of proximity models which will be disseminated through the Social Challenge’s tools, engaging as many young people as possible, thanks to a challenge of short video clips depicting good practices or ideas; they will be publicized with the support of 9MQ, a local WebTV. Hence, the challenge will become a communication campaign involving citizens, thus producing educational models for the promotion of solidarity.