Retake

Retake is the most widespread association actively engaged in the care of the commons

It is a spontaneous movement of citizens, non-profit and non-partisan, promoting beauty, livability and urban regeneration, encouraging the spread of civic sense and the responsibility of every citizen in contributing to the civil and economic growth of Italy.

We operate through a set of civic mobilization events, educational projects and public-private collaborations, involving in the respect and protection of cities all components of the social context, within the framework of the principle of horizontal subsidiarity.

Retake’s field of action is public spaces, understood as streets, squares, green areas, beaches, buildings. In these areas it acts with projects and initiatives of different kinds:

  • direct interventions of improvement and beautification
  • design and participation in the implementation of structural innovations
  • development of social relations
  • civic education of people and in particular of the very young and young people
  • awareness and involvement of private institutions and businesses.

Parallel to its action in the field, Retake actively participates in the public debate on the sustainable development of cities, the enhancement of public goods, active involvement of citizens, and the efficiency of services.

 

Objectives

Retake develops initiatives and projects aimed at the sustainable development of the city, with specific reference to the recovery, enhancement and innovation of public spaces, through collaboration with all components of society: public administration, institutions, businesses, nonprofit organizations.
In this perspective, Retake promotes the participatory re-appropriation of public spaces, teaches how to read the history of the city and stitch it up, keeps the cultural heritage alive, teaches how to recognize beauty, and strengthens the sense of belonging.

  • Territorial competitiveness
    Knowing and caring for the city, through events to restore iconic places in synergy with relevant institutions
  • Community development
    Civic education projects for toddlers and adolescents, citizen education on recycling collection, collaborations with other associations in the area, involvement of commercial activities in neighborhood care
  • Social innovation
    Collaboration with businesses, designing new geometries for the city, supporting corporate sustainability

In more than ten years of activity, Retake has organized countless events for the care of public spaces in cities, along the coasts and in green areas, with programs of land redevelopment as a remedy to urban decay, aimed at improving environmental and social conditions.

We operate through a set of civic mobilization events, educational projects and public-private collaborations, involving in the respect and protection of the city all components of the social context, within the framework of the principle of horizontal subsidiarity.

Through the regeneration of urban spaces we set three goals:

rescuing them from abandonment, making them usable for local residents as places to meet and play;
demonstrate that with participatory and reasoned planning and efficient use of resources, tangible changes can be achieved;
induce permanent change in the people who live in the city, prompting them to look at their spaces with new eyes, to imagine how they would like them, to give concrete form to their ideas.
We believe that urban regeneration is a mechanism for revitalizing entire areas, as well as a driver of community improvement.

Since 2009 Retake has initiated an ongoing relationship of confrontation and collaboration with all Administrations, in the belief that active citizenship and institutions must be mutually supportive to achieve common goals.

Over the years we have signed agreements with city halls and offices with which we interface in the care of our cities, to facilitate volunteer actions and strengthen their impact on the entire community.

We consider, in fact, an essential part of our activity to stimulate the city and national debate on the development of the commons, in which to involve institutions and associations as the main interlocutors on the protection of the city.

In promoting our values we have also concretely involved the international communities in the area, from the European Commission to the Embassies of the United States, Japan, Estonia, Canada, Australia, the Philippines and Romania.

In order to preserve and continuously promote the high value and social incisiveness of every cultural and art project (public and street but not only) pertaining to Retake, an interdisciplinary Commission has been established to prepare and foster new proposals, evaluate all those born within and those in collaboration.

CoAC, formed by a Commission President and six qualified members, serving for five years and with the possibility of automatic renewal, sends a message: Art and Culture are for all and of all and provide for a professionalism that proposes and responds to them by supporting a completed planning and meaning, in form and content, capable of deeply and positively affecting territories and people’s lives.

Care and Culture have always been a pairing that is part of Retake’s mode of action, which aspires to enhance its merit, meaning, common spillovers and collective participation.

For such objectives, therefore, any project related to cultural and artistic areas and themes will necessarily have to be submitted to the Retake CoAC, which will assess its quality and feasibility, in turn planning further ones.

Contact:
coac@retake.org

 

All Retake projects!

The project for an inclusive community aims to make explicit and concrete the inseparable link between urban regeneration and human regeneration. The former is not only a value in itself, it is also a means of realizing the latter. Underlying the initiatives we develop in this area is the understanding that the most important common good that Retake cares for is the community itself. A community that loves and respects the places where the people who make it up live and work, wants to protect and enhance them because they are the common home, where no one should be left behind, where everyone can have their opportunities to enhance their well-being. The beauty and harmony of places must be found together, through a new higher solidarity among people, through participation and mutual aid.

We operate by activating projects that foster the widest collaboration between associations, local institutions, residents, economic operators and by involving, in particular, the weakest segments of the population who, in this crisis, suffer the most dramatic conditions of difficulty; to give them opportunities for socialization, reintegration and support.

We started with the establishment of a network with other voluntary associations for the delivery of solidarity shopping parcels, we continue with projects to care for common goods and help people through direct engagement paths aimed at increasing their chances of social inclusion.
As an individual or association you can contribute additional ideas and proposals, be informed about current initiatives and give your willingness to participate. Write to info@retake.org you will be welcome!

Companies are a strategically relevant vehicle for the spread of virtuous behavior, and, the beauty and livability of the urban environment are among the factors that affect the competitiveness of the companies themselves and the city as a whole.

Therefore, we have thought of a shared and tailor-made path for companies that strengthens the culture of solidarity, promotes active citizenship according to the principle of horizontal subsidiarity and people’s civic sense.

In concrete terms, we propose companies to organize, together with us and with the participation of employees, a Retake intervention that can be part of the volunteer days included in corporate social responsibility activities or be included in a team-building path reinforced by a social utility implication. During a retake, in fact, creativity is stimulated, management and operational staff are brought closer together, empathy, listening, problem solving and process management are developed; not to mention that this type of activity leaves participants with a positive energy that lasts over time and produces a virtuous circle, thanks to identification with the territory.

For more information contact Retake

 

Retake Schools was created with the aim of training the new generations in a supportive and conscious citizenship of the value of common goods, overcoming the mechanism that always delegates the overall solution of problems to third parties.

In the course of the project, the school reality becomes a microcosm in which boys and girls, boys and girls become protagonists of a civil and respectful coexistence of others, through the development of skills such as knowing how to cooperate and plan together, share tasks, respect commitments and roles that they themselves have given themselves, learning to know and respect each other’s different personalities.

Supported by teachers, the pupils start by observing the area in which they live, decide how to act and practically implement what they have planned.

To start the Retake Schools project, simply follow the steps outlined in the guidelines we have prepared. We have now accumulated experience that allows us to give precise directions to those who want to independently start a project in a school.

Email us for more information.

We organize walks led by historians and art historians along routes of high cultural interest, during which people who participate are invited to perform small acts of care for the city: from picking up litter on the ground to removing abusive posters or stickers from street furniture.

This makes possible an experience that makes people touch, firsthand, the immense value of the cultural heritage in which our roots lie and gives the measure of how important and necessary everyone’s contribution is in taking care of it.

Want to propose a Retake Culture Walk? Contact Retake.

Rethinking public space is a crucial and strategic issue for the virtuous design of our cities.

What is Made in Retake?

Made in Retake is the program of Retake Rome that aims to enhance and improve urban spaces through the practice of tactical urbanism.
The objective of the interventions is to requalify and above all rethink squares and sidewalks through actions and strategies more connected to the real needs of citizens and based on dialogue with the territory.

This practice can bring a concrete improvement to the quality of urban public space, which becomes more livable, positive and suitable for socializing, while respecting legality. New usable and beautiful spaces that by osmosis, can lead to a possible improvement of local micro-economies.

By proposing small-scale projects and in concert with institutions, private businesses or other local associations.

For information write to info@retake.org

inRetake is the program dedicated to commercial establishments that stand out for their management model and virtuous behavior in caring for the environment around them.

Businesses play a fundamental role in protecting the quality and livability of public spaces, which are crucial values for the economic revitalization of the city. That is why we want to identify, enhance and promote businesses that stand out for their management model and virtuous behaviors.
If you too are committed to the care and maintenance of your appurtenances, discover the inRetake requirements, write us an email and join the network too!

We will give you a window sticker (or other material compatible with your business requirements) to make your at project manifest to the public.

Retake’s goals include promoting virtuous practices of citizens with regard to proper waste delivery, waste reduction, and consequently promoting recycling and reuse practices.

Virtuous and responsible recycling behaviors can help to greatly reduce the burden of our consumption on the environment. Equally important are reuse practices as intact and functioning goods, discarded by their owners, can still be usable by other people, helping to overcome the environmentally unsustainable throwaway culture.

In this context, since 2018 Retake has launched the “Reuse and Recycle Used Sneakers” project in Rome, which aims to raise awareness among young and old about reuse and recycling, to show how even a discarded shoe can continue to have value.

If in good condition, the used shoes will be used for donation, otherwise they will be earmarked to become “second raw material” for building shockproof playgrounds or athletic tracks.

You can contact us by email here: ricicloriuso@retakeroma.org