OpenSPACE

OpenSpace, selected by Con i Bambini for the Fund to Contrast the Educational Poverty of Minors, is a four-year project that aims to make communities inclusive and responsible to promote the educational and cultural development, as well as the empowerment, of pre-adolescents and adolescents. The activities will be held in suburban areas of Bari, Milan, Palermo and Reggio Calabria.

Activities will concentrate on a series of key dimensions: a high quality and inclusive education; the transformation of schools into reference points, not only for the students, but also for their families and the local community; contrast school dropouts. All actions will be implemented in synergy with the complementary competences of the many partners.

ISSUES AND ACTIONS

In Italy, over 1 million children and teens, aging 3 to 18, live in absolute poverty. This means isolation and lack of services, positive relations, and educational and learning opportunities. Moreover, 7 students out of 50 drop out of school before completing their course of studies. These young men and women are at risk of not possessing the right tools to develop their future and remaining blocked in a spiral of poverty and exclusion that will continue for many generations.

A minor’s condition of poverty is multidimensional. It is the result of one’s economic, health, family and living contexts; of the lack of accessible facilities and opportunities for socialising and playing; the lack of services to care and protect infants. In fact, educational poverty does not only depend on economic conditions. It is the result of relations, isolation and lack of opportunities.

BENEFICIARIES

The project, which addresses 12 schools that were selected for their fundamental social value in difficult contexts, will involve 2300 students from first-degree secondary school, 700 students in second-degree secondary school and 1000 young men and women who risk or already have abandoned school, as well as 1600 parents and 500 teachers.

ACTIVITIES

Development of schools and learning facilities and programmes with a high number of students

• Organisation of labs with students, parents and teachers to redesign school facilities and implement proposals;
• Develop large murals conceived by students and executed by artists;
• Organise phyrtual innovation gyms, physical spaces for experiential learning with a high technological content; social theatre actions and programmes.

Strengthen Educational Communities

• Training labs for parents and teachers;
• Open information desks in school for families;
• Create a catalogue of local resources, opportunities and contacts and develop a group of expert volunteers at schools.

Fighting School Dropouts

• Develop labs to reflect on one’s experiences and define life objectives;
• Monitor and orient school dropouts;
• Provide enterprise development courses.