Arimo 2016
Start date: Mar 1, 2016,
End date: Jun 30, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Arimo is a social enterprise that gives hospitality and training in the growth toward autonomy to teenagers in difficult situations. Arimo founded and manages three shelters for teenagers with problems of child distress or juvenile erratic behavior (14-18/21 years old): two male shelters (in Giussago and in Milan) host 10 boys each and a female one in Pavia hosts 10 girls.The project will involve four different Sending Organizations from Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain and Portugal. Arimo will host four volunteers for a period of nine months each.They will join the service experience in our three educational shelters (2 volunteers in Giussago, 1 in Pavia and 1 in Milan).They will be housing in a separate flat, specifically rented by Arimo or managed by Arimo in the social housing service, in order to ensure their adequate relax during leisure time, an environment for exchange of experiences and cohabitation with other young people in autonomy path and other volunteers, easy access to city services and integration in the territory.Their accommodation will be in Pavia, or Giussago, or Milan, depending on practical convenience at organizational level. All the places are well connected with the others by public transportation and next to the metropolitan resources.Camillo House is in Giussago, a little village 2 km far from Pavia, in the countryside to live open-air, produce part of our food, have spaces to play and to guarantee protection to our guests when necessary. Miriam House is a three floors villa, with a courtyard and is situated in the city of Pavia. Third Space is situated in a large apartment in a social housing context in a new village inside the municipality of Milan. The volunteers, during service shifts, will share space and daily life with the kids of the shelter.The different activities that the shelters carry out will be showed to the volunteers, in order to give them a global vision of our reality and become able to understand more easily the specificity of each situation. According to their inclinations and personal abilities, the volunteers will be involved in some of the proposed activities: formative activities and laboratories (garden, vegetables and flowers, carpentry, painting, removals and evictions, catering), cultural and sport activities, school support, watching films together and then discuss about them, support with the daily management of the house (preparation of meals with the guests, maintenance of the house), with the supervision of the activity tutors, organization and support of the free time activities, accompanying the teenagers to their tasks outside.It is important to underline that the volunteers will never substitute the staff in the ordinary activities but will bring an adding value to our shelters helping the operators in the different activities, enriching and enhancing the work already in progress.The presence of European volunteers gives value to the educational work with our guests and contributes to Arimo's growth. Arimo will provide a very rich and formative experience to each volunteer, with many different activities, according to his/her abilities and aspirations, through a constant individual counseling and support and a "learning on doing" path with interiorized and shared aims.The objectives of our project include the creation within the three shelters of an experience of sharing and intercultural integration addressed to multiple recipients: guest users of our educational shelters, the volunteers who participate in the project and the local context. In particular, the work of volunteers in each shelter has the objective to offer to the adolescent guests (all coming from different Countries) new experiences of dialogue and mutual understanding with people from different cultural contexts, to compare points of view, gain flexibility and sensitivity, open spaces of imagination on possible ways of life, overcome their feelings of marginality and diversity. For the volunteers involved in the daily management of a residential service, the project is an opportunity to acquire competences and grow as individuals, as it aims to provide a dimension of non-formal and informal learning of the highest quality, through the active participation of the volunteers in the project at every stage, in direct collaboration with the educational team of professional youth workers, thereby reinforcing their personal and professional identity, acquiring soft skills of team work and communication as well as specific skills in the field of education and language skills, usable in terms of employment opportunities. At the end of the service, Arimo supports the volunteers in the final evaluation and maintains contact with former volunteers, encouraging them, in network with the S.O., to carry out some activity of dissemination of experience to raise awareness of other young people and inviting them to return to Arimo assist in the integration of new volunteers.