Associates and professional collaborators of GEA operate and develop activities and services through co-design actions with institutional and civil society partners to rely on public and private, Italian and European funds, with specific focus on some macro areas.
01
Design and project management
OUR EXPERIENCE
GEA has gained solid experience in local, national and European planning either in the social, educational and social-health fields. The participatory construction of an inclusive and multicultural society is the lens through which we review programmes and calls for proposals and through which we build local and international partnerships.
CRITERIA AND MEANS
Networking, co-design, empowerment and the centered focus on the beneficiaries are the privileged methodological criteria. Tools and languages of intervention are diversified, ranging from capacity-building and social research-intervention approaches. Non-formal socio-educational interventions are also included, promoting sport, theatre and other artistic expressions as tools for inclusion.
PLANNING AREAS
The planning areas concern - primarily but not exclusively - educational, school and socio-health services, youth policies, participation and active citizenship,programs combating educational poverty, inclusion and anti-discrimination services , restorative justice, welcoming applicants for international protection and, in general, vulnerable indivuduals.
HOW WE DO IT
The projects GEA worked on and in which it is currently working as lead or partner institution, are mainly financed by public institutions and programmes in Italy (F.A.M.I. - Fondo asilo migrazione e integrazione - of the Ministry of the Interior, Cassa Ammende of the Ministry of Justice, EELL, public and private foundations, Fondi otto per mille...) and public institutions and EU programmes (Erasmus, Europe for Citizens, Justice...).
PAST AND PRESENT
Since 2008, GEA has participated in over 50 EU projects, working with public institutions and private organisations, transnational networks from over 18 different EU countries. In order to carry out its projects and develop the underlying cultural thinking, GEA is a member of a number of national and European federations, consortia and associations (see section Partners and Networks).
Welcoming and social inclusion
02
WE WELCOME VULNERABILITIES
GEA is involved directly and with network partnerships, in the widespread welcoming and accompaniment of vulnerable people and families, such as migrants seeking international protection, including victims of intentional violence and/or trafficking, single-parent families leaving the welcoming system, people admitted to alternative measures to detention and/or end of sentence.
ALL-ROUND SUPPORT
Gea supports and accompanies the paths of individuals and families with socio-educational tools and with professionalism, from the initial phases of disorientation to regularisation to an economic and social autonomy, ensuring full support in all phases of integration in the host territories.
THE CHALLANGES WE FACE
We respond to the challenges - personal and contextual - that arise in the pathway to social inclusion: legal aspects, employment and social integration, housing autonomy, education and training, psycho-educational support, training and awareness-raising of the operators and citizens involved. The activities are built on current and evolving needs and requirements of the beneficiaries.
WHO SUPPORTS US
Reception and social inclusion projects are supported by qualified professional and qualified devices: social services, educators and psychologists, linguistic and cultural mediation, labour market operators, social co-housing services.
OUR MAIN OBJECTIVES
Two priority objectives are pursued through welcoming: empowerment and self-reliance of individuals and households, providing the necessary tools to face challenges and achieve personal, relational, educational and work-related success; social cohesion by strengthening ties of affinity and solidarity between individuals and communities to reduce processes of exclusion and discrimination.
What they say about us is the reason we keep doing this.
03
Linguistic and cultural mediation and intercultural counselling
MEDIATING BETWEEN DIFFERENCES
Since 2001, the linguistic and cultural mediation and counselling action carried out by GEA, contributes in reducing the possible misunderstandings that may arise between non-Italian speaking citizens and service operators especially when there is difficulty in expressing and listening adequately to the vital needs that are conveyed in care and educational relationships. Interventions aim at facilitating the communication between the operators of public services - primarily social, health, school and reception services - and the migrant family/person accessing them.
HEALHCARE
Interventions support the care and therapeutic relationship between professionals and patients, promoting an effective understanding and compliance in health structures, and more generally awareness and prevention on issues of health, care and well-being of individuals and groups, with particular attention to vulnerable individuals and groups.
SCHOOL
Interventions support the school-family-pupil relationship (especially if newly arrived) for the reception, insertion and L2 learning, the management of emerging criticalities in coordination with social and health services in the maternal-child area and child protection.
HOSPITALITY
Interventions support the relationship of guests in welcoming and international protection programmes with offices and services responsible for assessing asylum and protection requests at all stages.When the request is accepted, support is extended to all processes of inclusion and socio-occupational integration, up to autonomy. Specific programmes are addressed at prisoners at the end of their sentences, leaving for social reintegration.
WE PROMOTE EXPERTISE
Operators and practitioners working in linguistic and cultural mediation and intercultural counselling have, in addition to linguistic and cultural competences, also specific professional skills - counselling and family mediation, social service, community psychology, L2 teaching, social and health workers, etc. - to support the helping aim - to people and institutions - with an overall vision of the welcoming and integration process. - They are able to support the helping relationship - with individuals and institutions - with a general vision of the welcoming and integration process. GEA promotes and supports the training and accompaniment of professionals involved in mediation and counselling activities through personalised support including external supervision, in-depth training on contents and methodologies of intervention in vulnerable situations.
Training and Organisational Consulting
04
WE SUPPORT CHANGES
GEA supports the changes introduced and the necessary innovation required by the re-configuration of society and services in relation to the demographic and migration ongoing processes, with training and organisational consultancy.
HOW WE DO IT
We design and deliver capacity-building and training courses for operational and managerial staff of social and health services, schools and other local public services. Gea offers organisational consulting and administrative support services for the reorganisation/management of cooperative and association structures, projects, productive realities and migrant entrepreneurship.
WHO WE ADDRESS
The training is mainly addressed to professionals and managers from public administrations and social cooperation.
WHO WE WORK WITH
The training and counselling offer is generally contained in articulated project actions financed by European and/or national funds. GEA relies on the collaboration and partnership of qualified professionals and professors, also belonging to a consolidated project partnership such as S.I.M.M. (Italian Society of Medicine of Migration), Oxfam Italia, I.P.R.S. (Psychoanalytic Institute for Social Research), U.N.A.R. (National Office for Racial Discrimination), Regional Anti-Discrimination Observatory and others.