Comune di Anzola dell'Emilia

description of organisation

Given the new requirements brought about by the changing demographics and the growing immigration rate as well as the tendency of youngsters to leave their hometowns, the Anzola City Hall has been taking measures over the past years to improve and develop its own services aimed at creating and enhancing the sense of community and at encouraging certain socialization and active participation of youths to social life, also thanks to the ESC volunteers, for the last 3 years.

The Administration within the Youth Policies section produces and aims to create initiatives and instruments to incentivize young people to settle down in the towns in which they were born. The aims of these actions are not limited to involving youths in actions as an alternative to the social void but they also include the development of youths’ transversal competencies achieved through relating to public administration and the support of their sense of initiative when it comes to include and attract fellow youths.

More precisely, the Administrations set out to:

-strengthen the network of relations between youngsters and local and district educational agencies
- support the creation of informative materials: documentaries in hardcopy and video formats to make the involved youngsters and their active participation known;
- encourage the exchange of experiences among citizens in various geographic areas with the aim of contributing to the intercultural dialogue and mutual awareness concerning rules, laws and citizenship.
In order to reach these objectives, for several years , the Administration has been carrying out various activities addressing young people through the Youth Forum which has in fact been the first and innovative landmark for the Communal Administration in terms of its own relationship with the youngsters that live on its territory.
It is an instrument that allows young people make proposals because it is an informal, flexible tool. In this manner, the Youth Forum becomes a landmark for the local Administration, with consultative powers and therefore capable of promoting projects proposed directly by the Forum itself in front of the Communal Council.

What is more, the Youth Forum is very useful in terms of evaluating and checking the consequences of the initiatives that had been promoted and put into practice by the Local Administration and local associations. This allows for the Youth Forum to truly come up with propositions in the field of initiatives addressing young people.

The main objective is that of creating a privileged space for debate and democratic confrontation by endorsing young people’s planning abilities and also that of building a space for significant relationships through innovative forms of consultation and participation. The Youth Forum is made up by youngsters aged between 15 and 29 years old.

Apart from the Forum, during the past years, Anzola has also created an active Centro Giovani (Youth Centre) called “La Saletta” which is another project of the Anzola dell’Emilia City Hall addressed to local youths. This is a place where one can find so many opportunities in terms of leisure, study, cultural and sports activities and for the younger members of the community there is even a service of school support and leisure, sports and lab activities. The activities are animated by professional educators but youngsters also have the opportunity to introduce their own ideas and implement them.

Invited to do so by local youths, the Administration has created an online portal called “Anzola Giovani” http://giovani.comune.anzoladellemilia.bo.it/ where all proposed initiatives are collected as well as present local activities addressing young people. It is a very useful and popular channel in order to stay updated and to give visibility to various initiatives.

Non formal and informal education are an essential tool for achieving our objectives and for these reasons, involving young ESC volunteers is a crucial point not just in order to integrate and enhance available energies but also to stimulate young minds to create even more efficient practices than those already in use: the Youth Centre’s activities; the ones organized as a network with local educational, formative and leisure associations which work with teenagers and youths; the Youth Forum, a consultative and propositional organ of Local Administration; shows, music events; the Carta Giovani etc. On the other hand, foreign youths get the opportunity to know the local structure and the way youth policies function in a small town: they can compare it and adapt it to their own context and especially discover and learn about local culture and traditions.

The Administration’s aim is that of continuing and developing its experience achieved so far and creating new, more effective practices in the field of youth policies and services for young people.

Volunteering project