Training as “urgency”. The first reception in an Internet Café with guided, semi-guided and autonomous activities
Guests of the Pietralata first refugee reception center (in Via di Pietralata 109) come from 20 different nations and are, on average, 27 years old. The center is managed by the ecclesiastic Arch-confraternity of the SS. Sacramento and S. Trifone. This particular “hybrid” structure hosts immigrants granted Foreigner’s Period of Stay and those requesting 6-12 months’ political asylum, providing them with food, clothing, and shelter and also training tools for the first steps along the path to integration in accordance with the integrated reception model. The most elderly guests are 49 years old; the youngest have just reached adult age. The guests have an extremely wide range of life experience, family histories, and educational backgrounds. The one thing they all apparently need is training that can be immediately applied.
With this premise in mind, Fondazione Mondo Digitale wished to test the performance of the model of intervention adopted at Centro Enea – an experimental secondary reception structure for refugees and those applicants for political asylum – at a first refugee reception center. The workshop area provides training activities with different levels and methods, ranging from traditional frontal lecturing to the more practical, hands-on techniques enabled by the presence of an Internet Cafè.
Despite their different origins, guests of the Enea Center have better starting skills and are all political refugees requesting political asylum. Guests of the Pietralata Center, instead, are more unequal in the skills they possess and have different migration stories, and this has required the simplification of the model and concentration on the ICT training activities while keeping the Internet Cafè as an area for the sharing of experience and the exchange of knowledge.
The use of the computer has been identified as a key skill in promoting integration for three fundamental reasons:
- It is a low-cost communication tool (e-mail, online telephony, etc.) that is already available with services in different languages;
- It is a transversal work tool present in every professional sector;
- It is the most versatile instrument for the continuation of training paths formative also autonomously and at long distance.