 The centre was one of the most important examples of community development in Italy and especially in the south since World War II.It became both a form of self-organisation of local communities and a training school for a generation of socially and politically committed young people, who found their cohesion as a group and attempted to construct a process of social aggregation through the methods and instruments of active non-violence.Dolci used the Socratic method, a dialectic method of inquiry, and "popular self-analysis" for empowerment of communities.