Community educational prevention
The “Community Educational Prevention” project, which sees Doctors for Peace as a Partner, aims to strengthen the network of services and subjects of the “educating community”, with particular attention to families living in conditions of social marginalization.
The context
Children of immigrants are at greater risk of educational poverty due to linguistic and cultural disadvantage, economic deprivation and social disadvantage.
A response to educational poverty is given by the full social integration of minors and the school is at the center of the network that deals with promoting it (made up of family, school, public and private bodies). This network sometimes has a sectoral or fragmented approach. Inserting bridge figures between the different bodies with an educational role and proposing training moments and sharing of good practices can make it possible to strengthen the network by optimizing the interventions in place.
Another key element for the process of scholastic and social integration is the active participation of foreign families in the educational path of their children. An obstacle to the participation of foreign mothers is often the linguistic one. The role of cultural mediation and the optimization of information so as to give immigrant mothers access to existing services is fundamental. It is essential to combat educational poverty from the first months/years of life by directing immigrant mothers to antenatal services and for children in the 0-6 age group.
The economic factor is another cause of educational poverty, often preventing the use of the opportunities offered to children by the territory (sports, music, recreational, cultural). A concrete support is the so-called “educational dowry”, a personalized plan of help that manifests itself in the support of extra-curricular expenses (e.g. trips, summer camps, non-curricular activities, free subscriptions for courses, sports and music education activities, transport costs).
Activities
This can be done through:
- the innovative figure of the “proximity operator” who will have a role of promoter of the maximum possible synergies between all the subjects of the educating community;
- the implementation of training initiatives of general and specific interest for all subjects of the educating community;
- the launch of territorial working groups (destined to continue beyond the project), for the sharing among the subjects of the educating community of good practices and strategies for overcoming discomfort.
A series of actions are also planned to encourage the protagonism of immigrant familiesand, and mothers in particular, with a view to their capacity building , aiming at progressive autonomy from the welfare dimension of services.
To do this, we will first of all use the tools already successfully implemented by CESTIM and its partners, such as linguistic and cultural mediation and assisted study interventions during extracurricular hours, considered indispensable by schools, families and socio-educational and health services. To these tools will be added an innovative measure called “educational dowry” consisting in the preparation of micro budgets aimed at covering the costs that families would have to bear and which often represent the greatest obstacle to the use of educational offers for minors in situations of educational poverty.
