Space

There is a difficult adolescence, which concerns those young people who come from towns far away from the cities equipped with high schools, young people who come from low-income families. SPACE tries precisely to do this: to not leave those teenagers and families alone, from whom we expect a lot, and to create innovative tools, including digital ones.

S.P.A.C.E. - that derives from the Italian Studenti Pendolari Acquisiscono Competenze Educative, i.e. Commuter Students Acquire Educational Skills - is a project selected by Con i Bambini (With the Children) as part of the Fund to fight against juvenile educational poverty, which was created to improve the social and educational conditions of commuter teen students living in isolated areas of the Italian territory at high risk of school drop-outs and educational poverty.

In Italy there are over 11 million commuter students who move from their municipality to reach school every day. The distance travelled, the travel time and the perception of one's condition can not only generate discomfort and stress of various kinds but are factors that - in some contexts - can also favour school drop-outs.

Educating the places where commuter students live and strengthening and involving the educating community are the main tools of S.P.A.C.E. to fight against school drop-outs. The project, spanning 3 years, involves over 3,300 children between 11 and 17 years old and covers six regions and the involvement of 18 high schools, 6 public transport companies and 8 shopping centres.

The spaces that are familiar to commuter children will, therefore, be the background for all activities: bus shelters, bus stations, stations, public transport hubs but also shopping centres and schools. Here, not only educational interventions with theatrical mediation will be carried out, based on a methodology that combines improvisation theatre and educational practice, but also information campaigns on educational-social topics to increase the knowledge of boys and girls of the social and aggregative occasions that the territory offers. Instead, the app that will be developed to promote the connection between girls and boys for the creation of specific projects will be called @SPACE. A project, therefore, which aims to strengthen the educating community of the area and that will give a new life to the formal and informal places that students live in.