Vicolocorto - Totem

description of organisation

The Youth Centre TOTEM aims at reinforcing the sense of community in the suburb area providing social services aimed at reinforcing the action towards inclusion. For example, the centre offers free workshops of artistic expression, English conversation, homework support and informative meetings about employment opportunities and strategies. The youth centre TOTEM is a former-elementary school, ownership of the municipality of Pesaro, located in the neighborhood of Villa San Martino. There are two floors and it is accessible for people with disability. In the centre there are workshop rooms, a room for games, a meeting room, an office, a secretary room and a small kitchen. There are toilets in both floors. Outdoors, there are around 300 mq of garden where it possible to organize little events, party and concerts and to play volleyball.
The centre is open every afternoon, from Monday to Friday and one evening per week. Here, young people meet every afternoon, they spend time together informally, playing music, organizing youth initiatives, doing homework or playing games. The centre supports, in fact, alternative spaces for socialization and integration of young people promoting healthy activities in the free time in a context dedicated to young people.
Around 50 young people are involved daily in the youth centre activities and among them, 11 are disables (10 boys and 1 girl). A youth worker of the Municipality of Pesaro is leading the main activities and since 2018, the Centre has been hosting European volunteers which have been supporting its regular activities.

In particular Vicolocorto-Totem realizes the following activities:

- Intercultural activities, that imply the coordination, organisation and implementation of youth exchanges for the young people of the youth centre;
- Cultural activities, which can include events, presentations and meetings ;
- Educational activities, through workshops and presentations;
- Information activities about European opportunities for youngster in cooperation with schools;
- Social animation;
- Coaching activities by stimulating and supporting informal groups in developing their own ideas and projects;
- English conversation workshop and support in homework for the users of the youth centre.

The main objectives of the youth centre are the following:

- To promote active citizenship through activities
- To promote inclusive and integration process among youngster through socialization activities without barriers. In this context the role of the youth worker is crucial due to her professional competences in the education field.