Professional courses for immigrant youth in Italy: cook’s assistant, baker, gastronomer

Related projects

• Promoting Social Inclusion and Employment with "Il Faro" (Mother project)
• Supporting Educational Courses for Immigrants in Italy
• “Building Hope” – Supporting Professional Training Courses For Disadvantaged Women And Youngs To Help Them In Finding A Job
• Sustaining “Il Faro” Training Courses for Young Immigrants in Rome
• Improving Socio-economical Conditions of Youth Through Vocational Training Courses and an Orientation Help Desk
• Language Courses, Vocational Training and Guidance for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Italy

Project location: Italy
Project start date: January 2008 - Project end date: January 2011
Project number: 2007-16
Beneficiary: Fondazione Il Faro di Susanna Agnelli

The lack of skills and professional knowledge in troubled youth, especially immigrants, and their resulting social and working impairment frequently cause enduring poverty and social problems.
The Nando Peretti Foundation cofinanced this project which includes three theoretical and practical training classes for 34 youths between 17 and 26 years old. The chef assistant and pastry chef classes last for 150 hours and the assistant - bartender class lasts for 100 hours. The classes operating modality, which is well established, teaches food preparation and production techniques that are necessary to enter the labour market. This is to help achieve economic self-sufficiency, which is guaranteed by professional training. The need for qualified staff in the food sector is constantly growing, as shown by statistics provided by professional Associations.

The "Il Faro Foundation" has been working over the past ten years with Italian and immigrant youth who are in difficult situations. The Foundation mainly deals with social and work integration issues.
During the past years the Foundation has worked out new courses of action with an increasingly satisfactory outcome. Over 62% of the youths trained and monitored after the courses achieved social and working opportunities.
The Foundation chooses the training fields with greater working opportunities, also considering each individual's capacities. These two aspects have highlighted the professional figures of chef assistant, pastry chef and assistant - bartender.
The professional skills functional to the labour market are guaranteed by ISO 9001:2000 quality procedures applied to the classes, by the educational programs based on market requests, by well equipped workshops and by teachers who run a business or are professionals in one of the fields.
The training goals regarding each class are knowledge and scientific proficiency, autonomy, manual skills and job operating capacities.