Vimodrone 2017/18

For the second year, Fondazione Milan has started the project Sport for Change in Vimodrone, addressed to kids between 14 and 18 yo, reported to juvenile justice or at risk of early school living.

The Sport for Change centre in Vimodrone is for teens between 16 and 18 yo who have been reported to the juvenile justice system for various reasons.

THE SITUATION

Over the past years, Italy has experienced an increasing number of subjects – minors and young adults – handed over to Social Services for minors due to deviant and criminal behaviours; we went from 17,000 subjects in 2008 to 21,000 in 2016. Over these past few months in 2017, 18,124 kids were entrusted to Social Services, 4,000 of whom for the first time.

This figure, alongside other stats such as early school leaving, shows the state of discomfort that many kids are experiencing at this time.
Addressing the issue of juvenile delinquency, here indicated as minors in conflict with the law, is a way to understand more deeply these kids’ problems and their needs and those of the adults who engage with them to create a positive growth path.
Among the actions taken for minors’ offenders, detention is stepping aside towards experiences that better respond to the educational and relational needs, without leaving behind controls and restraints. Community centres are becoming one of the most valuable option for local Courts.

For this reason, we chose to work with Kayrós, which hosts minors involved in criminal activities and accommodates vulnerable subjects or kids who have a hard family background to prevent this vulnerability to become a criminal activity.

HOW TO INTERVENE

The project provides for the creation of a team made up of sixteen kids who come from ‘Comunità Kayrós’, which already worked with Fondazione Milan last year. The organisation was born in Lambrate (a neighbourhood in the outskirts of Milan) thanks to Father Claudio Burgio and to people and families who understood the need to host minors in trouble, indicated by Juvenile Courts, social services and police forces. The first host community was born in In Vimodrone, in 2000, with a project that provided for a strong territorial integration, specifically with Milan’s parishes.

The team will be involved in sporting activities twice a week at Polisportiva Cimiano’s training centre. The activity is coordinated and organised by a coach and an educator of Fondazione Milan. The staff schedules the sporting activities setting goals, both physical and educational, for each meeting. The coach will manage the sporting aspect of the activity focusing on how to adapt the different exercises to each individual’s skills; the educator’s role is to promote group activities and make the approach with the kids easier. Depending on the schedule, also a psychologist will be there to supervise the work done by the coach and the educator. His/her job is to get to know the kids and to make it easier for them to reach their goals.

The sporting activity will be integrated with recreational activities which will be offered based on kids’ needs and requests. Through this experience, we want to give these kids an opportunity to show their abilities and potential, in addition to acquiring the skills needed to facilitate their education and to guide them in the choice of their future careers.

BENEFICIARIES

Sixteen kids of the Comunità Kayrós di Vimodrone will take benefit from the project. They are aged between 14 and 18 yo and come from different parts of the world (Italy, Morocco, El Salvador, Egipt, Albania, Serbia). Nine of them are minors who have conflicts with the law; the group is then made up of further seven kids who are in the group because at risk of early school leaving or in need of some help to resume their education and to hone skills that could help them enter the labour market.

These seven kids come from a tough household context. They need a place where to learn how to integrate with the community and how to become more independent.
Four kids took part in this project also in 2016/17 season.