Italy has recruited an “army” of 1,000 people to help repair its crumbling hamlets and fight crime.
The unusual task force made up of engineers, architects, lawyers, eco-consultants, geologists and other experts is due to be dispatched across Italy next month to help rebuild the country after the double whammy of a crippling pandemic and 20 years of stagnant growth.
More than 60,000 people applied to be part of “the thousand”, a name chosen because of its echoes of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s soldiers who joined up to unify Italy in 1860.
