Cultivating integration

General objective

Vocational training activities for around 100 migrants as part of the Emergency Project for Asylum Seekers 2017 in Liguria and Lombardy.

Specific objective

Creation of 320 hours of training sessions divided into two modules (theoretical and practical) to support migrants and asylum seekers.

Expected results

The development of a model of sustainable social integration and the creation of professionals who can become part of the local economic framework.

About the project

We offer training courses for young asylum seekers and immigrants who find themselves in a transitory and precarious situation due to their legal and juridical status.

This initiative builds on a pilot project carried out in 2016, during which the young people involved showed a remarkable and immediate interest in the courses offered by the cooperatives that hosted them. Prior experience thus clearly reveals their desire to learn, as they are aware that they will acquire a set of skills that can help support them in future.

The courses on offer provide effective training that is specially tailored to the transitional period. In particular, we provide the specific skills needed to manage an organic vegetable garden, teaching them about the growing calendar and growing techniques, land management, the use of tools, cultivation methods (fertilisation, organic weed control, irrigation), and harvesting.

We want to encourage the participation of the young people who completed the training course in 2016, helping those who are interested and permitted to remain in Italy to access apprenticeships and to act as mentors for the new recruits. To this end, the teachers offer a special course that also allows the class of 2016 to get more training experience.

The project involves creating new gardens where permitted by land ownership rights, fencing and access to water. We also have to ensure that the young people’s safety can be guaranteed and that the training is sustainable over a period of time.

In addition to meeting the basic nutritional needs of the project participants, thus potentially reducing the costs incurred by the host communities, we believe that short food supply chains that follow crop harvests will be able to fill a market niche that has emerged in recent years, such as the network of small groups that purchase goods collectively, the “Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale” (ethical purchasing groups).

Project costs

100.000 €

Beneficiaries

100 migrants and asylum seekers

Project backers