Messina: the "Time Bank" presented at Palazzo Zanca

The project is underway with the activation of information desks in the six Municipalities.

Di Annamaria Martinisi il 14 Ott, 2023

Messina: the "Time Bank" presented at Palazzo Zanca.

The only bank where everyone makes their skills and knowledge available, receiving the services they need, a real bank where instead of money they exchange hours and everyone makes their skills, skills and knowledge available, while receiving the services they need.

It is the Time Bank, an initiative presented this morning at Palazzo Zanca, in the presence of the mayor Federico Basile, the councilor with relative delegation Liana Cannata and the councilors Massimiliano Minutoli and Pietro Currò. The Presidents and Councilors of the six Municipalities, the President of the Messina Time Bank “Zancle Solidale” Marta Liotta, and Nina Dinuzzo, creator of the Time Bank in Sicily, also took part in the meeting with journalists.

"The Time Bank it is an important project for our community and a source of pride for our government action - said Mayor Basile – because it was designed for the individual Municipalities with the aim of involving as many citizens as possible by providing them with a dedicated desk for each territorial area they belong to. Therefore, an initiative that combines the social aspect with that of strengthening the role of the Municipalities in the broader and more general vision of the principle of implementation of administrative decentralization. Guaranteeing decentralized services means cooperating and networking."

“An original banking model – continued Councilor Cannata – at whose branch you do not deposit money and do not collect interest, but you deposit your willingness to exchange activities, services and knowledge with other members using time as a unit of measurement for exchanges. From this perspective, the offices distributed in each district represent the places in which the residents of each of the six municipalities can come together to give life to new forms of solidarity, enjoy moments of socialization, exchange of ideas and opinions, but above all places where citizens can give expression to their manual or cognitive skills. In fact, they will be able to mutually exchange skills relating to cooking lessons, food preparation, small repairs, ironing, carrying out paperwork, conversations in foreign languages, help with homework for children, from dog sitting to babysitting, SOS computer, city guide, walks, gardening and relaxation techniques. The services that can be exchanged are the most varied precisely to give life to a project that puts the person at the center with their skills and competences. With the time bank we intend to encourage people to meet and interact, an added value that must not be wasted".

And on the recovery of certain values continued Minutoli “the objective is to create a network of people who give and receive help, recovering the good neighborly relations of the past. It is a tool that allows us to offer small daily help, above all - said the Councilor for Relations with Municipalities - in a social context in which it is essential that we too, as administrators, contribute through similar initiatives to guarantee peaceful coexistence and optimize the quality of life of citizens residing in the six urban areas by making them an active part".

“The Time Bank I believe – added councilor Currò – can allow many families to feel part of the local community and the relationships that will be created through cooperation between individual branches could be an important element for creating social cohesion within the Municipalities and a resource for the whole community , and therefore, a common good for all; where all of us, in a digital and artificial intelligence era, can reclaim that central role according to the humanistic vision".

At the end, she intervened the president of the Time Bank of Messina who thanked the municipal administration for sharing and supporting the project “you see today – Liotta said – the achievement of an important result that engages the community and makes it the protagonist of the maximum expression of solidarity, in which the founding element is reciprocity. All members of the Bank have time as their unit of measurement, all are on an equal footing and give and receive on the same level using time as a currency of exchange".

Membership is free and voluntary.