Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

From neighborhood mapping to identify new meeting spaces to cultural and recreational-sports itineraries: with Teencity and local education initiatives, the young protagonists of the city

Milan, March 28 2023 – In the post-pandemic period, Milan thinks of boys and girls and invests in their future. The resources deployed with Teencity and proximity education projects amount to a total of 1,5 million euros, to involve pre-adolescents and adolescents in Milan in the life of the neighborhoods in which they live and help them become protagonists of the city's future.

It was discussed today, at the Feltrinelli Foundation, during the meeting aimed at third sector associations and professionals, "Milano Futura. The city of girls and boys", a moment of exchange and fruitful dialogue with the many entities that collaborate with the Municipality in the planning and management of activities that concern the young segment of the Milanese population. The councilor for Youth Policies Martina Riva and the councilor for Civic Services with delegations to Decentralization and Participation Gaia Romani participated in the event.

The interventions of Teencity (around one million euros) and the educational projects of proximity, conflict mediation and analysis of the phenomenon of youth violence (500.000 euros), which find economic coverage in the funds of law 285/97, will be carried out until December 2024 and will involve over 2 thousand adolescents in the identified territories. 
 
"These are important resources – explains councilor Riva – which we will use to mend the tears caused by the isolation of the pandemic period among the youngest, in favor of sociality, aggregation, sport and social cohesion. Both the initiatives of Teencity and the proximity and mediation educational interventions that we will develop aim to positively re-appropriate public space by boys and girls. We want the Milan of tomorrow to be increasingly tailored to them, conceptually and physically close to their interests as well as being able to stimulate creativity, resourcefulness, trust and solidarity in them. And it is in this direction, of development and social protection in the territory, that all the activities will move".

The projects selected within Teencity will develop in three areas.
A book-game will be created in the Taliedo and Morsenchio neighborhoods, edited by the Lavoro e integrati ONLUS association and La strada, a social cooperative. Personal branding and self-entrepreneurship courses are planned in Baggio and Forze Armate, created by Consorzio Solidarietà in rete (SiR), GVV - Aic Italia, Solidarity Action, New Community, Project Community, Equa Social Cooperative, Età Insieme and Farsi Next. And in the Vigentino-Fatima and Stadera-Chiesa Rossa neighborhoods, teenagers will be asked to identify a place in which to start a "teen center", in which to give space to talents, led by Zero5 Laboratory of metropolitan utopias social cooperative, Ala Milano ONLUS, Shareradio and Association 232.

As part of Teencity, a city-wide study will then be carried out to understand how much and in what way boys and girls participate in the social life of the city. The work, together with the monitoring and evaluation of the projects, will be conducted by the Association for Social Research, Amapola Srl Social Enterprise and ABCittà.

The initiatives regarding local education dedicated to the promotion of youth well-being and the prevention of hardship will affect, in particular, four municipalities.

• In Town Hall 1 with the Aiutiamoli ODV association, the territory will be mapped in search of new meeting spaces and workshops and theatrical performances will be offered to teenagers.
• In Town Hall 2Instead, the young people of the area will be involved by the Social Cooperative Tempo per l'infanzia and the Acra Foundation in the creation of artistic itineraries, cultural itineraries and outdoor sports, as well as in the organization of events and small urban redevelopment interventions.
• In Town Hall 6 will be the mapping of the Via Gola area, a web radio project and the organization of a live festival together with a theater workshop and moments of professional orientation, organized by the Social Cooperative Spazio Aperto Servizi, Amapola Srl social enterprise and Sociale A&I cooperative , to activate the teenagers who live in the neighborhood.
• Finally, in the Town Hall 7, we will focus on threshold education and recreational-sports courses in public spaces with the social cooperatives Equa and Comunità nuova.

Furthermore, actions are planned aimed at analyzing the phenomena of baby gangs and collective violence, by the Minotauro cooperative, and at mediating conflicts in favor of minors with the Dike cooperative.
The entities that will co-plan and co-manage these activities with the Municipality and the support of the municipalities have been identified by the Administration through specific public notices.
 
"It was not at all obvious, yet the result obtained – states councilor Romani – is the result of the excellent synergy and fruitful teamwork between different departments and municipalities. Precisely the involvement of these gave us the opportunity to generate opportunities for networking like today's, and it is the best way to ensure that the measures and interventions planned by the various departments of the Municipality of Milan reach the territories in the most targeted and coherent way with the needs that are expressed. Those that will be implemented are projects that put the participation and protagonism of city stakeholders at the center and which represent an ideal thread with other initiatives we are working on, such as those aimed at the Council of Boys and Girls. The engagement and involvement of young people are fundamental to building an aware society and interested in the management of public affairs".

The importance of recovering urban spaces to use them for new social functions, in particular services for young people, is the subject of a strategic international collaboration between the Municipality of Milan with Vienna, Stuttgart and Helsinki, as part of the Youth in urban space project ( YUS).