Innovative Best Practices

Bologna

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Name of the Practice

Vesta

Category

Housing Integration

Country - Area/Region

Italy

Geographical Coverage

City of Bologna

Timelife

October 2016 – December 2019

Level of the practice

Local

Type of activity

Mixed

Partnership implementing the initiative

The Vesta project partnership involves the Municipality of Bologna as lead institution, Asp City of Bologna with a coordinating role and CIDAS Social Cooperative like managing body.

Contents of the practice

Vesta wants to contribute to the protection, welcome and integration of unaccompanied foreign minors and young refugees who are beneficiaries of the SPRAR project. It involves families, couples and individual residents who voluntary choose to host them in their own home and actively accompany them in their integration process. The project includes different opportunities: family hospitality, family support, volunteer mentor, foster care and volunteer work.

In this path, the staff helps participants in the training course imagine themselves as welcoming citizens and families, and illustrates the supervisory and support tools available to the candidates, along with the counseling services and psychological support for the young people in the programme.

The main goals of the project are the promotion of the social inclusion and the autonomy of the SPRAR beneficiaries, and at the same time the engagement of the local community in the integration process.

Evaluation of the practice

The evaluation of the project includes the evaluation at the beginning of the training path that involves families and SPRAR beneficiaries, intermediate and final evaluations. It is realized through meetings with families, operators and beneficiaries.

The Vesta project is offering a new opportunity to build increasingly integrated, innovative and safe communities and represents an important contribution to integration, in which families and individual citizens can be personally involved.

The most important success factor regards the involvement of families and citizens in the integration path of SPRAR beneficiaries.

Sprar beneficiaries involved in Vesta project more easily can found their source of income, housing solution and can better understand the local culture and feel part of the local context.

An important challenge that the project has to address is continuously adapting the skills of the project operators to the new dimensions of this phenomenon.

Adaptability/Replicability to other contexts

The good practice was already tested in Bologna and Ferrara territories but it is easily adaptable to other contexts. 

Up-Scaling

The project is easily adaptable to other contexts with the involvement of refugee or asylum seekers, other projects and citizens.

Related Web site(s) of the practice 

https://www.progettovesta.com/en/

Related reports and resources developed by the practice

https://www.progettovesta.com/en/press/

Contact Details

https://www.progettovesta.com/en/contact/