The project called “Teenagers at risk 100celle”, was financed by the “Vodafone Italy” Foundation and set up by the Central Italy Province (ICC) with the VIS – International Volunteer Movement for Development.
The Reception Centre welcomes young people between 14 and 18 who have received a Court Order as an alternative to a custodial sentence or who for various reasons have given up school. They are youngsters very familiar with failure, with school experiences of constantly failing even from elementary school, who have made the streets their school.
At the Centre the youngsters are made welcome at any time of the year in order to start literacy courses, or the middle school curriculum, or preparing to be car mechanics, electricians, assistant cooks or bar-staff or in beauty salons. Courses are adapted with individual timetables according to their ability and without any fixed time-limit.
In the last 12 years the Centre has helped 1000 youngsters, 200 of them with court orders as an alternative to custodial sentences. Statistics show that two years after the completion of the personalised programme a third of the youngsters, with experience of the courts, have succeeded in getting out of the vicious circle of criminal activity
Taking part in the discussion were the President of the Province Luca Zingaretti, Ida Linzalone, Secretary General of the Vodafone Italy Foundation, Gianni Fulvi, President of the Union of Children’s Homes in Rome and Lazio, Giancarlo Corsi, Professor of Social Pedagogy at the Salesian Pontifical University, Donatella Caponetti, Director of the Centre for Youth Justice in Rome, Maria Antonietta Vergari, Principal of the Comprehensive Institute Borsi 2° CTP, Giuseppe Pungitore, Councillor for Social Services in the VII Municipal District of Rome.
Published 05/02/2009
