Comune di Riccia - Municipality of Riccia

The Municipality of Riccia is a Town of 5383 inhabitants located in the Molise Region in South-centre Italy. In recent years, the Municipality has carried out many activities aimed at the re-evaluation of local tourism, also with particular attention to disadvantaged groups. The Municipality includes a charming historic village as a result of an architectural complex whose first buildings date back to the Thirteenth Century. Currently, the Municipality of Riccia has launched an important project of revaluation of the historic village as a sustainable village of wellness; in the framework of the project, the village will be renovated in a residence of wellness that will provide social services for the Third Age, and the people needing assistance and rehabilitation as well as for people with few opportunities, Roma people included. In addition, the project aims to integrate social services with cultural, folklore, entertainment and tourism aspects of the local tradition, as well as with environmental and naturalistic features of the Municipality. The Municipality of Riccia is the Lead Partner of the Social Plan of the Fortore -Matese area which includes 24 other rural municipalities of the Molise Region. Co-signatories bodies of the Social Plan are the Province of Campobasso, The Regional Health Authority of Molise and the Mountain Community of Fortore Molisano and Matese. The agreement is already operational and has been signed on November 24, 2009, with the overall objective to promote public welfare in the area with particular attention to the inclusion of disadvantaged people. Specific objective of the plan, is also the promotion of tourism. In the light of that, the aim of the agreement is to build a new tourism proposal health care and social tourism oriented, in order to characterize and qualify the territory of Molise - Fortore as districts of wellness. The project aims at the organization of a system of widespread acceptance, specializing in paramedical, health and well-being tourism that in addition to specific activities of care and assistance, active programs of prevention, rehabilitation and entertainment capable of building, in close symbiosis with the peculiar components of natural, environmental and cultural premises, an alternative way of "making the holiday", combining the well-being of body and spirit with the enhancement of human relationships (especially family members) within a context that, in addition to being organized and properly equipped, proves particularly pleasant and welcoming. The Municipality of Riccia is a member of the “Associazione Borghi Autentici d’Italia - the Association of Italian Authentic Villages” http://www.borghiautenticiditalia.it/bai/, the network of Italian Territories whose protagonists are communities of citizens, of local administrators, of local traders. They are background operators that don’t complain about problems of social or economic decline but, aware of their possibilities and resources, want to detect new changes for a better future. They belong to that part of Italy that wants to make it. Borghi Autentici is an Association that creates an operative between small towns and villages working on a common path – often far from being easy – of continuous improvement of the urban structure, of the social services, of the social, cultural, tourism and environmental context. It’s a small part of Italy that finds its strategic reasons in a renewed of performance and development in identity, in the scenery, in arts and crafts, in their lifestyle, in the story and in local traditions. This is reality that considers the local community as a key issue of its development plan. The community is seen as a place, a human and cultural context synonymous of good living, authentic taste, creative know-how and slow social dimension; the Community that disclosed itself to the outside world.