Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The structure will open in autumn in via Don Carlo S. Martino. Councilors Rabaiotti and Galimberti: "A further step towards welfare for all, which guarantees social inclusion, access to school and combating school dropout"
 
Milan, August 22 2019 - A multi-service center that takes care of accompanying families who have been distant for a long time on the process of reunification, with a view to an increasingly open and welcoming city, and that implements the already existing services "I'm looking for school" and "Reach me ” to guarantee social inclusion, access to the school and training system and combat school dropout. 
These are the objectives of the new WeMi hub dedicated to family reunification which will be born in autumn in via Don Carlo S. Martino 10, on the first floor of the municipal building where the Acquabella cultural socio-recreational center is already active. The idea is to concentrate in one place the support services for foreign citizens who reside permanently in Milan and intend to start a process for family reunification, or who have recently reunited with their family members, to encourage their integration and access to the opportunities offered by the city. 
 
The space will concentrate within it the functions present in the other WeMi points, the physical spaces dedicated to the home services system of the Municipality of Milan, and in addition will make available specific skills necessary for those starting a reunification process: social workers, educators, a psychologist, an orientation service for Italian courses active in the city, legal consultants, a mentorship system by those who have started and successfully completed a path of this type. All professional figures who will support the family not only in the legal process of approving the application, but also in the process of insertion into the new context.
 
Among the difficulties that families encounter during the reunification procedure is often that of planning a correct entry into the school system, for which minors are sometimes excluded from attendance for a period that may be more or less long or find themselves enter class once the course has already begun. For this reason, within the Centre, the Education Department's “Cercooffro scuola” service will be made available to families, the school orientation desk aimed at young foreigners aged 14 to 21 which in 2018 welcomed 117 students and families. and carried out 147 choice orientation interviews. The children will be accompanied in choosing the most suitable school, supported in the registration phase, and will be able to participate in information and orientation meetings for the choice of secondary school, professional training courses and university courses to be completed. Interventions will also be carried out to combat individual and group school dropouts, co-planned with the schools, and linguistic-cultural mediation, interpreting and translation.
 
A further objective of the Center will be to support the individual members of the family unit, monitoring the process of rapprochement and rebuilding bonds after a period of separation which has often been very long. Furthermore, within the new WeMi hub, there will be an operator who, through networking with public and private social bodies, will dedicate himself to guiding the choice of the Italian course best suited to the characteristics of the newly arrived person.
 
The family reunification procedure represents a legal entry channel into Italy which records very high numbers. Every year around 6 thousand applications of this type are presented at the One Stop Shop of the Prefecture of Milan. About half of these are made by citizens residing in Milan, especially to request the entry of minor children.
 
The Municipality intends to manage this space together with other city entities with experience in this field, which is why a public procedure for the awarding of the service will soon be launched. The hub is part of the "Lab'Impact" project which is led by the Lombardy Region and which is financed with resources from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (FAMI).
 
“The opening of the WeMi space dedicated to family reunification – declares the councilor for social and housing policies Gabriele Rabaiotti – will be a further step in the development of what we wanted to define 'Welfare for all', a system that deals with the needs of all citizens, those in difficulty but not only. In this way, Milan confirms itself as attentive to the needs of each of its inhabitants and open towards those who aspire to become one, in line with the Ambrosian spirit of an open city that has been able to find its points of strength in diversity and successful integration paths. Force".
 
“A valuable project that will guarantee access to compulsory schooling for boys and girls who have just arrived in Milan – adds Education Councilor Laura Galimberti – and accompany them on an orientation path in choosing the studies best suited to them , so as to also combat the phenomenon of school dropout."