Improving Socio-economical Conditions of Youth Through Vocational Training Courses and an Orientation Help Desk

Project location: Italy, Rome
Project start date: December 2013 - Project end date: December 2014
Project number: 2013-061
Beneficiary: Fondazione Il Faro di Susanna Agnelli

 

Social inclusion of young immigrants in Italy and re-integration of young Italians in society are the issues that "Il Faro" wants to face with this project in the city of Rome, where the Foundation works since 1997. The immigrants will be economic migrants, refugees, asylum seekers or second generations; the Italians will be young living in conditions of social distress and hardships. The first step to achieve social inclusion, both for an immigrant and for an Italian, is the possibility of being economically independent. However, people living in hardships and coming from countries where the labour market is quite different from the Italian one have to face several major difficulties. Among them, it is possible to remark the recognition process of foreign professional qualifications and the need to acquire new skills to meet the Italian labour market's demand. For a young Italian it is difficult to engage himself in a new start, recovering from his unfavorable situation and keeping bad companies away.

In order to achieve its objective and mission, the Foundation wishes to offer a real opportunity of improving socio-economical conditions to the young beneficiaries of the project through its vocational training courses and an orientation help desk.
"Il Faro" also wants to facilitate inclusion and integration and give food for thought about how different cultures face important phases of life, and about how the differences can live side by side in the same society.
Therefore, the project wants to face the two aspects of social inclusion or re-integration: the first aspect to be considered is the work, the second one is a intercultural debate.


1. WORK. To improve the possibilities of getting a job, young immigrants and Italians need to acquire adequate skills to meet the labour market needs. Especially today, when young job-seekers face hard competition as in Italy the rate of youth unemployment has reached 40%. Such skills should be acquired in the short time, in order to give to the beneficiaries the right tools to find a job as soon as possible. Between the necessary tools to get a job, there are, certainly, some skills that do not belong to a specific job profil: it is the understanding and appreciation of their potential.
Therefore "Il Faro" aims to organize one vocational training courses for "Hairstylist", two vocational guidance meetings and one-to-one conversations realized by a psychologist.
The training course will last 2 months, for an amount of 140 hours each: 15 students will learn the basic job skills in workshop-style meetings with teachers who have a relevant teaching and professional experience. Moreover, students will be followed by a cross-cultural mediator, a tutor and a psychologist.
"Il Faro" is convinced indeed that, to get the best from its job and its students, is crucial to strengthen their self-confidence and their perception of what they really are and what they can be and do as well as their professional skills. For this reason "Il Faro" wants to organize two vocational guidance meetings in which a psychologist will help students to stress their skills through the writing of effective résumés and presentation letters, and explain them how to go through successful job interviews. Furthermore, the Foundation wants to organize one-to-one talks between students and the psychologist to customize the information given during the collective meetings.


2. INTERCULTURAL DEBATE. It is well acknowledged that integration is a bidirectional dynamic process that places, at the same time, specific questions to both the host society and to individuals and/or communities that have appeared later. Acceptation and inclusion are therefore processes involving both Italians and foreigners. The inclusion goes through the mutual knowledge, so what "Il Faro" wants to do is an intercultural Cineforum called "Could we talk about it, please?". The aim of this Cineforum is to analyze some important stages of life that different cultures live in different ways by watching movies and understand how differences can live side by side in the same society.
There will be three rounds of meetings, each one with 6 appointments. Every round will have different participants, from 15 to 30.
Two topics will be chosen (between love, religion, adolescence, death, family etc...) and for each of them two movies - an Italian and a foreign one- will be displayed. Two of the six events will be dedicated to films-related debates, and two short films with a brief review of the movies and the reflections of the participants will be produced on these occasions.

The Nando Peretti Foundation has awarded a grant for this project. Two different kinds of objectives are foreseen: from a quantitative point of view, "Il Faro" expects an increase on the students employment rate, while considering a quality-based result, the initiative aims to improve social conditions and inclusion of the beneficiaries and their families.
The expected results achieved at the end of the project are: 1 training courses completed, 15 young immigrants trained (70% of which employed or taking part in in-depth training courses), 3 Cineforum rounds (6 meetings each) organized, 100 people involved in cross-cultural initiatives and sensitized on Italian and foreign cultures.


IL FARO
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