by CSOA La Strada
In a world where grassroots initiatives often bear the burden of filling the gaps left by failing institutional responses, the experience of Mompracem l’Isola Solidale in Rome’s Garbatella district stands as a testament to the power of community-led mutualism.
What began as an emergency response to the COVID-19 crisis has evolved into a transformative social infrastructure, proving that radical participation and mutual aid can reimagine local welfare beyond crisis management.
From emergency to empowerment: the birth of Mompracem
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the fragility of institutional welfare systems across the world. In Rome, the Eighth Municipality coordinated a solidarity network, “Municipio Solidale,” to provide essential food aid to over 600 families and 2,000 individuals, mobilizing more than 300 volunteers. The network sourced food through the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), supermarket collections, and citizen donations. However, as the pandemic emergency subsided in November 2021, the structural inequalities it exacerbated did not disappear. Recognizing the need for a long-term solution two different grassroot organizations, the occupied social center “CSOA La Strada” and the community space “La Villetta Social Lab”, joined forces to transform the emergency response into a sustainable solidarity initiative.
“CSOA La Strada” it is a self-managed space with a long history of activism, having been occupied in 1994. It embodies a model of horizontal organization, where decision-making is collective, and every voice matters. Over the past three decades, hundreds of individuals have passed through its doors, contributing to its organization and shaping its political and social vision. Today, it is animated by a collective of under-30 volunteers, who carry forward its legacy while infusing it with new energy and perspectives. These young activists engage in daily struggles against speculation and institutional neglect, ensuring that La Strada remains a hub for direct democracy, mutual aid, and cultural resistance. The social center has long been a reference point for grassroots struggles, hosting political assemblies, cultural events, mutuality projects and educational workshops. By facilitating projects like Mompracem, La Strada proves that youth-led, community-driven initiatives are not just viable but essential for reimagining urban spaces as sites of radical transformation. “La Villetta Social Lab”, founded in 2015, was created as an incubator for mutualism, participation and sharing projects aimed at the local community and beyond. It specialises in social and cultural animation, operating as a laboratory of ideas and practices to organise projects aimed at improving the quality of life for residents. Through training courses at affordable prices, support desks on social issues and free activities, Villetta Social Lab promotes culture, good sociability, quality human relations and lifestyles, the practice of rights and participation.
This marked the birth of Mompracem l’Isola Solidale, a social market that upholds dignity, agency, and community-building. Mompracem does not claim to “fix” poverty through temporary relief but rather aims to challenge the systems that produce marginalization, fostering a collective capacity for resistance and transformation. The goal of this project is not simply “to help the needy”, but to actively dismantle the logic of dependency and paternalism that too often defines charitable interventions, replacing them with principles of autonomy, reciprocity, and self-governance. By pooling their networks, skills, and community ties, La Villetta and CSOA La Strada co-manage Mompracem: a collaboration that not only has strengthened the initiative but has also allowed for the integration of wider mutual aid networks, food recovery programs and participatory decision-making processes.
Beyond Charity: the Social Market Model
At the heart of Mompracem is a social market, where beneficiaries are no longer passive recipients of aid but active participants in a solidarity economy. Structured around a points-based system, families receive “wallets” of points based on household size and socio-economic conditions, allowing them to choose their own food instead of receiving standardized aid packages. This approach combats the stigma of assistance while promoting autonomy and dignity: unlike traditional welfare mechanisms, which often reduce people to case numbers and bureaucratic classifications, Mompracem engages individuals and families as political subjects capable of co-determining their own material conditions and involves them in activities that go beyond the food distribution, promoting a sense of agency.
Sustaining this initiative is a network of six local organizations, including La Villetta Social Lab, Borghetta Stile DJs, Cara Garbatella, Popica Onlus, and Solid Roma Odv. The market operates two to three times a week, with food supplies sourced from a combination of FEAD provisions, local fresh food recovery initiatives (RECUP Aps), and supermarket donations facilitated by MOVI Lazio. Another innovative feature of Mompracem’s model is “Stasera Offro Io”, a project developed by the Associazione Banco Alimentare Roma, with which the Social Market collaborates. This initiative, similar to “Too Good To Go,” redirects surplus food to those in need, disrupting the logic of waste and commodification. It is an integral part of the network of associations that work together to recover food, ensuring that sustainability and redistribution go hand in hand.
A Hub for Social Change
Mompracem has grown far beyond its initial mission of food distribution. It has become a safe space that fosters human connections and fights social isolation, a critical but often overlooked aspect of poverty. It does not simply offer a transactional service: it aims to build relationships of solidarity that outlast temporary need.
Some of its key impacts include:
- Over 70 families supported on a monthly basis, amounting to a provision of 100+ euros per family in food value.
- More than 7 tons of food are distributed per year.
- Support for local Renewable Energy Communities, enabling 7 families to access alternative energy sources.
- The successful transition of 15+ families out of the program as they regained financial stability, not as isolated “success stories,” but as part of a broader process of collective empowerment that represent the main goal of the project.
From Mompracem to Fermenti: Institutionalizing Grassroots Solidarity
The transformative impact of Mompracem has not remained isolated, neither in the city, where a number of similar experiments have emerged, nor in the Municipality VIII. In fact, in November 2023, the Civic Pole of Rome’s Municipality VIII, known as ‘Fermenti’, was established as an initiative that was built upon the collaborative model experimented by Mompracem, extending it to other realities within the network. Fermenti integrates the Social Market, a cornerstone of Mompracem’s activities, with a Social Desk dedicated to monitoring social distress and with participatory workshops enabling citizens to design and implement solutions related to access to food and sustainability. Thanks to their joint community approach, Mompracem and Fermenti collaborate fruitfully, bringing together institutions and voluntary associations in this network to co-create a more inclusive social fabric and ensuring that the community-driven approach continues to thrive within a broader institutional framework.
A Model for Radical Participation
In a time when traditional democratic institutions are often struggling to engage young people and provide meaningful avenues for participation, this experience offers an alternative vision: it exemplifies how youth-led, community-driven initiatives can reclaim agency, not just through protest but by actively building an alternative. This is democracy beyond elections, an ongoing process of negotiation, self-organization, and direct action.
The experience of Mompracem is a reminder that grassroots democracy is not an abstract ideal but a lived reality, built through everyday acts of solidarity, collective care, and mutual empowerment. It embodies the radical act of imagining and enacting new possibilities for economic justice and social participation. In the words of Danilo Dolci, “One only grows if dreamt.”, in Garbatella the dream of a just, inclusive, and self-sustaining community is already taking shape.
