Interpretations: for social enterprise we mean a no-profit private organization that distributes services of social usefulness to completion and integration of the local social and sanitary system.

Start up: the referring territories of the project highlight the lack of instruments of local programming centralized on the social economy support. The cities, in fact, struggle to adopt urban development policies that succeed to conjugate the culture of enterprise with political, economic and social objectives, finalized to the city sustainable development. All that has involved an elevated fragmentation of initiatives undertaken by single social enterprises, without a direction from the local governments able to support both the start up of new initiatives of social entrepreneurship and the consolidation and development of those ones already existing offering logistic spaces, counselling services, training activities and instruments of acquaintance of the territory.

Main challenges: overcoming of the causes described in the problem tree.

Problems: lack of support instruments directed to sustain the birth and increase of social enterprises, to transfer social value and to transform the requirements of local communities in opportunity of development for the social enterprises, favouring at the same time a quality improvement of the workplaces created by them.The main focus of the project is the
“Development of clusters of economic activity
around new urban opportunities such as culture, care, the environment”
in relation obviously to the cluster of social enterprises, seen like subjects that are in a position to satisfy the demand of social services that the city territory expresses.

Some fundamental keywords that will be faced and developed by Urban N.O.S.E.:

1. creating new occupation in “non-traditional economy”;
2. supporting the processes of integration between the programmed social initiatives by the agencies of city government and the activities conducted by social enterprises;
3. developing sustainable economic activities;
4. increasing the participation of all the actors of the city economic development.

What motivates you to be part of the URBACT adventure ?
In the area of Gela, traditionally dominated by a single big industry employer, there is a need to create a culture of entrepreneurship and enterprise. This can be encouraged by social enterprises and training programmes that offer routes into entrepreneurship.
On the other side, there is a lack of support instruments directed to sustain the birth and increase of social enterprises, to transfer social value and to transform the requirements of local communities in opportunity of development for social enterprises, favouring at the same time a quality improvement of the workplaces created by them.
Long-term unemployed people in old industrial area (such as Gela) may be particularly "distant" from the labour market and yet may have already passed through a series of "revolving door" schemes. Local approaches should offer new routes into employment that start "further back" than mainstream programmes.Who would you like to benefit from the work achieved in your project?
The Urban N.O.S.E. Project aims to work out new instruments of Social Economy and model activity methods adjusted to the needs of different social groups and to the specific character of geographical areas, where the development of the Social Economy will contribute to restoring the attractiveness of these areas from the point of view of the labour market situation and the availability of services, including social services.