Equò. A Different Tutelage
Europe - Italy
Type of project:
Trials of proposals for vocational training in voluntary work for young foreigners in the care of social services or in juvenile detention, through involvement in educational and operative fair trade activities, with the aim of maintaining and re-establishing positive relations with their countries of origin and presenting routes to local development as an alternative to illegal emigration.
City / Location:
Italy, Milan and Pavia
Direct beneficiaries:
5 youths in the care of the USSM - Milan Youth Social Services and the “C. Beccaria” youth detention centre in Milan
Local staff:
1
Starting date:
2006
Summary of the Project:
The project - promoted in collaboration with the ‘C. Beccaria’ youth detention centre in Milan, the Centre for Youth Justice for Lombardy and Liguria (Milan branch) and the City of Pavia - takes the form of an experimental laboratory, with Italian and immigrant volunteers of various nationalities, in which to involve foreign youths (detainees of the ‘C. Beccaria’ youth detention centre or in the care of social services) in permanent voluntary-work activities providing vocational training. The experimental idea behind the project is to assess the educational usefulness of fair trade and encourage the young foreigners to assume a perspective of commitment to the development of their communities and living conditions in their countries that is dignified and an alternative to emigration and illegality.
In this way the project seeks to help improve available socio-educational and vocational services for the rehabilitation of young foreign detainees (both in Italy and in their country of origin), who often face a life of imprisonment (first) and then clandestine residency or expulsion once they reach adulthood. Educational and vocational programmes for these youngsters rarely take into account the characteristics of their cultures of origin or the actual prospects of employment in their home countries: the motivating and professionalising experience of taking part in fair trade work may emerge as a means of learning skills that could be useful and valid even if the youngsters later return to their countries of origin.
Co-financing bodies:
Italian Ministry of Social Solidarity
Project name: Equò - A Different Tutelage
Duration: 12 months