ASSOCIAZIONE DI PROMOZIONE SOCIALE KORA

description of organisation

Associazione Kora was founded in August 2015 to promote social and cultural awareness for its members (mainly youth) through outdoor life, socialisation opportunities, nutrition and sustainability.
Kora is situated in Passignano sul Trasimeno in the educational farm “La Buona Terra”, where it collaborates with other entities who have their activities on the farm.
Kora was founded to offer activities that neither the cooperative nor the agricultural company can carry out.

The Association:
- offers itself as a place of gathering
- promotes self-production and growing of own food following the seasons
- promotes the use of eco-friendly and appropriate technologies, such as: eco-building, water recycling, rainwater harvesting, etc.
- promotes a culture of healthy lifestyle as an added value for the entire community
- promotes lifelong learning
- offers learning opportunities (both short and long term) for unemployed youth and drop-outs in international groups. These opportunities are hosted in different places and include EVS, learning camps, courses of Italian kitchen for foreigners, arts and crafts, agriculture. Particular attention will be given to youngsters with fewer opportunities (drop-outs, economic difficulties, mental disabilities...): Kora already coordinates short term group EVS projects, in collaboration with the educational farm "La Buona Terra" and with Comune di Norcia; these projects focus on the learning process, allowing the volunteers to see a process from the beginning until the end, while supporting the local community. They include manual works (agriculture and maintenance, such as building fences, picking up leaves...), worksshops with disabled people and activities with children and elderly. There are many mentors following the volunteers and when needed the volunteers are accompanied by leaders from their own countries.

The main target groups of Kora are:
- Marginalized youth (unemployed, drop-outs, disorientated, economically disadvantaged)
- Youth in general (15 to 30 years old)
- Local community of Perugia province
- Citizens with interest in Food, Ecology, Organic food and sustainable building who want to learn and share their knowledge on the topics

Kora was founded in a region, Umbria, where there are almost no intercultural opportunities and international mobility projects for youngsters, because of a lack of organisations addressing these themes. There are for example no organisations that host or coordinate EVS projects, and only one accredited as a sending.
The region of Umbria doesn't offer many opportunities to youngsters that are born there. If they want to obtain a degree there's only one important university in Perugia, so many youngsters don't continue their studies or they have to move to Rome, Florence or other cities.
The youngsters who remain in the region don't have enough intercultural opportunities, and they don't even know these dynamics. The only opportunity they hear of is Erasmus Programme for students, but since many don't attend university, it is not as inclusive as EVS and Youth Exchanges. Umbria is one of the regions in Italy with the highest number of NEET (youngsters that don't study nor work).
The economic situation in the region was already struggling at the beginning of 2016 because of the crisis, and the earthquake that hit central Italy and the area around Norcia made the difficulties even more complex.
Also the geographical position of Umbria makes it a very closed region, difficult to connect with other parts of Italy, and this results in a high risk of close-minded attitude and of intercultural, ethnic and religious intolerance.