Mission of Oscata inVita

Invite to stay alive.

Oscata inVita was founded to keep the territory of Oscata alive through invitation — the first gesture of hospitality. In its name, the community of local volunteers and activists embraces openness and hospitality, with the understanding that it is through welcoming others that belonging, identity, and, why not, permanence — the life of the territory — are created. Thanks to the association, elderly local residents, young local workers, young entrepreneurs, and workers living in Irpinia with Oscata origins, as well as a resident from outside the region with local roots, have come together. Through active collaboration among all members of the association, efforts have been made to valorize the skills and knowledge the territory offers, which still retain the traits of the traditional rituals of past families, along with the rural heritage inherited from the peasant civilization, both used and preserved. The collective path initiated and the projects completed have led to the informal and natural formation of an Ecomuseum, understood both as a complex of material and immaterial assets of a community, and in the broader sense recognized by socioeconomic literature, as a "Community that is itself a museum".

Thanks to numerous active citizenship initiatives, Oscata inVita has transformed what was once an abandoned village into a place to visit, photograph, narrate, and engage with.