Turin does not escape the national trends that have seen youth unemployment rise significantly in recent years.
In 2016, the unemployment rate in the Province of Turin for the 15-29 age groups was 26.1% (source: http://dati.istat.it).
The greatest hardship is found in the most fragile areas such as the city suburbs.
Punto Giovani Lavoro (Young People's Work Point) (PGL) has the general objective of promoting social and work inclusion of young people, whether Italian or foreign, belonging to sections of the population at risk of marginalisation and social exclusion.
The supported project
The project has the general objective of promoting social and work inclusion of young people, whether Italian or foreign, belonging to sections of the population at risk of marginalisation and social exclusion. This general objective is based on the following specific objectives:
promote the acquisition and development of skills linked to actively finding a job, promote the ability to access local resources and services, facilitating the correct dissemination of information in this regard, increase the guidance and choice capabilities with regard to the vocational training offer present in the Turin area to encourage, through the activation of training internships, acquisition and development of basic professional and interpersonal, communication and organisational skills aimed at positive inclusion in the work environment
The direct beneficiaries of the project are young people between 16 and 29 years of age, at risk of social exclusion, residing in the northern suburbs of Turin, mainly in the Barriera di Milano district. The aim is to reach 150 youngsters of both sexes with the project’s activities, with a significant percentage of youngsters of foreign origin (belonging mainly to the second generation of immigrants).
These are youngsters who, for socio-cultural reasons (early school dropout, family background, low level of digital literacy, etc.), have more difficulty in finding a job, in orientating themselves towards the possibilities of vocational training and in properly accessing local services.
The indirect beneficiaries of the project are the families of the girls and boys involved; the population of the district, which will benefit from the decrease in marginal situations in the youth population.
Through the project actions, the aim is to foster in the young recipients processes of individual empowerment (skills development, awareness of oneself and one's actions) and the adoption of a proactive approach in finding a job. From the methodological point of view, the proposed project is based on an outreach approach, in which the operators "take" the service to people. It is a methodology that has already proven its effectiveness, especially in social work with disadvantaged people who have more difficulty in accessing traditional services. Other key elements of the methodology are the gender approach, with the presence of women in the team to facilitate meeting female users, who in many situations prefer to contact an operator of the same gender; and the use of intercultural mediation, which is useful for understanding the cultural codes that migrants bring with them and for their more effective access to services.
A help for young people
Every Tuesday in Piazza Umbria and every Friday in Piazza Crispi in Turin, from 10am to 1pm, boys and girls can contact the operators in the white van equipped with two computers, Internet connection and a printer.
The counter provides, free of charge, information and support on job guidance (from compiling a CV to online submissions), vocational training and school guidance, access to local services, residence documents for foreigners and immigration regulations. The service also provides a free WiFi area. Information can be obtained on residence documents, on schools, on health services, on work regulations and on access to public and private services in the city.
Information material on the city’s services is available for consultation and distribution. The team consists of three operators, including intercultural mediators of the Arabic and Romanian languages. The Point stems from the belief that it is necessary to invest in providing proximity information tools, in order to be close to people and their questions. The population of foreign origin quite frequently has difficulty in terms of access to services, both public and private, available in the city. These problems often stem, in turn, from difficulty in accessing information due to linguistic and cultural misunderstandings, to the scarce resources available to these people and to the frequent interventions of the legislator on immigration issues, which often make understanding the regulations objectively difficult.
Name of the project: Punto Giovani Lavoro
Name of the proposing entity: Abele Group Non-Profit Association
Area of intervention: Inclusion & Social Development
Starting date: 01/06/2018
End date: 28/02/2019