RIESCO: IN CONTRAST TO CHILD EDUCATIONAL POVERTY

Education is one of the key action areas of the Valter Baldaccini Foundation. It is one of the social emergencies that we must confront in this complex moment by providing concrete answers.

For this reason, at the end of May, the Valter Baldaccini Foundation signed the appeal "S.O.S. Childhood and adolescence" promoted by the “Childhood and Adolescence Group Foligno and Social Zone nr 8. " VBF is available to support a concrete project in our area to fight the lack of child educational opportunity.

In the last few weeks the Childhood and Adolescence Group, the La Locomotiva Cooperative, the school managers and the teaching staff of the Comprehensive Institutes of Foligno have worked on "RIESCO" a project, shared also with the Municipality of Foligno which granted an endowment dedicated to children aged 6 to 11 who lack educational opportunities due to:

• social, economic and educational challenges;
• literacy issues (the need to master Italian as a second language);
• disabilità con particolare riguardo a bimbi con disturbo dello spettro autistico disabilities with particular regard to children with autism spectrum disorder.

The project

The project aims to offer an educational space for meeting, socializing and recovering learning to those children and young people in our area with marked educational challenges, aggravated by the current disruption and isolation. For many, access to other recreational, socio-educational and support activities for the recovery of school learning is difficult or impossible.

With this in mind, the project will integrate the other donors in the area by providing an opportunity for reception, inclusion and integration to children who would remain, now more than ever, on the margins.

The need to activate these actions in the summer stems not only from the importance of recreating a meeting and growth space in the immediate post lockdown phase, but also to accompany and prepare these children and young people for the delicate and complex recovery of school activities in September, reducing the social divide exacerbated by the emergency.

The project workshop

There are about 80 children in the area, divided into small groups who will be involved in four specific workshops, two days a week, from July 14th to August 20th. The workshops are designed according to their age and needs. Specific laboratory activities for children with autistic spectrum will take place two afternoons a week.

• Exercise Workshop 
  Laboratory on organizational functions, classifications, strengthening attention, organization in logical sequences, consolidation of simple strategies for problem-solving, control of impulsiveness and emotional awareness.

• Let's talk about it workshop
  Listening and understanding laboratory for the consolidation of vocabulary, morphosyntactic and for enrichment through semantic concepts.

• “I read and understand” workshop
  In-depth workshop on reading narrative texts autonomously with comprehension strategies, writing texts and creativity.

• "Organize the study" workshop
  Laboratory for understanding informative and argumentative texts, selection of information, keywords, concept maps, exercise in oral presentations.

All laboratories will be held at the Sterpete school complex with large and bright spaces and a green area for outdoor activities.

RIESCO is a possible project thanks to a virtuous synergy between civil society, the non-profit sector and the public system.