“C.A.S.A. a Ballarò – Comunità Attiva e Scuola Aperta a Ballarò” is a project boosted by an informal network engaged for several years in the regeneration process of Ballarò district in Palermo. Associations, social cooperatives, parishes, schools, universities, small traders, citizens and institutional representatives are the actors involved in a collective participation process, aimed at formalizing the construction of an active community that dialogues, cooperates, educates, proposes, creates relationships and opportunities, in a logic of community welfare that could be sustainable over time.
The specific objective of this project is to increase the levels of well-being and educational opportunities for minors in the Ballarò district, aged between 5 and 14, who live in situations of social, cultural and economic fragility. C.A.S.A. a Ballarò is organized four main axes: school, third sector, family, neighborhood. Each of these axes, in the articulation of the planned activities, tends towards the common and shared horizon of the community.
Notably, C.A.S.A. a Ballarò foresees the implementation of afterschool activities, street educational interventions, training courses based on the peer education methodology in the scientific field and STEM, curricular workshops for the development of transversal skills, extracurricular workshops aimed at the organization of neighborhood events on topics such as interculturality and anti-discrimination (Ballarò Buskers and Mediterraneo Antirazzista), summer workshops and sport activities, which also allow a reconciliation of working and family life. In addition, parenting support activities (psycho-pedagogical counseling, training for mothers-tutors, tailoring workshops, support to the achievement of middle school diploma for parents of children in absolute poverty, ICT courses), renewal of some partner school spaces (restructuring of the gym and creation of a didactic garden at the ICS “Nuccio-Verga”, and equipping of the chemistry and biology laboratories of the Liceo Benedetto Croce) and training activities for teachers. Finally, the redevelopment of some areas of the district is planned, such as the Garden of Handala, Piazza Mediterraneo and the area in front of the Church of Santa Maria del Soccorso. The project lasts for three years, from April 2019 to March 2022.
C.A.S.A. a Ballarò is a project implemented by the following partners:
Per Esempio Onlus (leading partner), Anlaids Sicilia, Arci Porco Rosso, Associazione Kala Onlus, Associazione Le Balate, Associazione Libera Palermo contro le mafie, Associazione Santa Chiara, Associazione Sportiva Dilettantistica Ballarò Vipers, Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci, Comune di Palermo, Handala, Istituto comprensivo G.E. Nuccio, Liceo Scientifico Benedetto Croce, Rigenerazioni Cooperativa Sociale, Send, Terradamare Cooperativa Sociale, Università degli studi di Palermo – Dipartimento di Scienze Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e della Formazione.
The project has been selected by Con i Bambini as part of the Fund to combat child educational poverty through the financing line “Bando Nuove Generazioni”. The Fund is the result of an agreement between the bank Foundations Acri, il Forum Nazionale del Terzo Settore and the Italian Government. It supports interventions aimed at removing the economic, social and cultural obstacles that prevent the full enjoyment of educational processes by minors. To implement the Fund’s programs, the social enterprise Con i Bambini, a non-profit organization wholly owned by the CON IL SUD Foundation, was born in June 2016. www.conibambini.org.
For further information, visit the website https://percorsiconibambini.it/casaaballaro/.
