One of the newest members of the EPTO network, Inventare insieme (onlus), from Palermo, took the time to answer our questions to help us get to know them better. Here's what they had to tell us...

Can you briefly introduce us to Inventare insieme (onlus)? 

We are an association from the cultural and social sector dedicated to the conception, production and management of innovative communication strategies that connect audio-visual creation, artistic practices, digital technologies and new media through open and collaborative processes.

Since 1990, Inventare Insieme (onlus) has been active in promoting opportunities for involvement and interaction in the cultural, social and educational area, encouraging the development of a local perspective. Their actions are adapted to particular circumstances from creativity and the sum of disciplines, stimulating the production of shared knowledge, driving opportunities for dialogue and generating new forms of awareness and participation. Inventare Insieme (onlus) develops projects open to experimentation. Integrates research elements, motivates spaces of creation, production and exchange of cultural contents generating visibility mechanisms and incorporating the daily use of technology, social networks and media proximity. Centro Tau, founded in 1st March 1988, is a “Factory of Futures”, a place in which, through social and cultural promotion, we support growth and citizenship paths for children, youth and adults who want to work hard to improve the quality of life and both social and personal well-being. The target is to build up a “place”, a “house of education”, where children, young and adult people can “reside”, in order to “discover their own beauty, and other people’s one” and to get ready for the future enhancing the “talents”. The “Factories” of Centro Tau promote activities of guidance, school support, entertainment, sport, ICT, media education, study of languages, youth exchanges, music, cinema, theatre, dance and arts. Since April 2014, Centro Tau is one of the “Punti Luce” of Save the Children Italia Onlus, a place where to oppose to educational poverty in suburbs.

2. What 3 words describe your association?
Social inclusion - Opportunity Youth protagonism

3. Can you tell us a bit about your team?
Staff is composed by professionals, who are working for many years in this association. In our team, we have many specialized educators in psychology and pedagogic. They are specialists in music, linguist and media. They give us grate variety of knowledge of young people who are coming here. Also we use European volunteers to improve European citizenship.

4. What was your first encounter with EPTO?
We learned about the EPTO network thanks to an internet search. For several years we have been working on the issue of peer education and we would like to compare and share our experience.

5. What is the added value of peer education?
Considering the age of the participants, the creativity and variety of skills of the students attending the Centro  AU and the effectiveness of methodologies that reduce the distance between those who transmit the contents and those who learn them, it has been suggested to use the method of Peer Education. The sharing of the same liinguistic, values and cultural heritage appears to be more effective, immediate and disinhibiting, since the interaction between peers is perceived as less judgmental.  Peers play a critical role in the psychosocial development of most adolescents. They, in fact, provide opportunities for personal relationships, social behaviors, and a sense of belonging.

Peer education is one of the most significant and effective paths in the prevention of behavior at risk, since it identifies tools and strategies to empower the mutual change, combining the adolescent leading role with the adult competence and facilitating processes of integration, dialogue, inclusion and personal growth.

6. Which EPTO methods do you use or plan to use and in which context?
The toolkit is a real inspiration for us. We used many methods even before reading the toolkit of EPTO but having a guide that allows us to structure thoughts, ideas, activities and objectives has helped us a lot to make a natural practice a real working methodology, with good results.

We would like to discuss more about:

• Peer training
• how to evaluate and monitor processes
• how to follow-up

7. What do you expect from your EPTO membership?
Being part of the EPTO network is a great opportunity to share knowledge, and cooperate and change perspective on peer education together and could help us to improve the peer education methodology within our association.

8. Any upcoming events, projects your would like to share?
Since 2017 we are coordinators of an international Our S.C.O.P.E. project which includes 5 European countries:  Italy, France, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Spain.  It is an Erasmus plus - KA2 project on the exchange of good practices

Our S.C.O.P.E. aims at fostering the peer education by selecting the best practices from each partner organization in order to draw a common training program that will equip young people with fewer opportunities (disadvantaged, NEET, suburbs or with migrant background) to the acquisition of legislative, civic, artistic, audiovisual and intercultural competences, tackling the discrimination, segregation, and the pressing challenges related to social exclusion and unemployment through the development of a positive self-concept, confidence and communication & socialisation skills.

Specifically, the common training program will be developed on three main pillars:

1. legislation, citizenship and “images” of social disadvantages;
2. theatre-therapy and music-therapy, based on the current artistic strategies and techniques to developing the self-esteem and the recognition of the self within a social context;
3. new media education, such as photography and photo editing, video and video making, coder dodge and web radio.

The direct target groups may be identified as follow:

1. Adolescents with fewer opportunities (disadvantaged, NEET, suburbs or with migrant  background) who will participate as alumni of the training course - 10 from each partner country of the consortium (age bracket 14-18);
2. Youths with fewer opportunities who already own a previous experience in working with children/adolescents and who will be trained as tutors - 3 from each partner country of the consortium (age bracket 20-25);
3. Adolescent and youths with fewer opportunities who own no previous working experience and who will support the tutors as co-tutors of the training activities - 3 from each partner country of the consortium (age bracket 16-20).

Envisaged results for the long term impact are:

• State of the Art on the situations of social disadvantages and the current methodologies and strategies (good practices) to tackle the matter in all the partner countries;
• Training program in EN and all partners languages (preceded by the identification of best practices among partners' current approaches) on the common training program based on the three pillars of the project;
• Train-the-trainers guide - tangible document explaining the activities (and their meaning) to be run for each pillar and the strategies/approaches in accordance with the topic (and the class) as well as the interaction between tutors, co-tutor and participants.

Besides the above mentioned results, a considerable number of intangible results will be named under the action:

• a new self confidence for adolescents and youths with fewer opportunities to believe in themselves within a wider social context and to learn how to expand and project their skills and abilities around them to better understand their capacities, both at physical and intellectual level
• inseparable link between the self assurance and the future possibilities of being accepted into society
• new capacities and skills for music and theatre experts, psychologists, pedagogues, educators and new media experts, working with people with fewer opportunities, involved in the project who will further disseminate their new acquired competences after the project end, creating a wave effect
• higher awareness from National Agencies and public authorities about the social inclusion and empowerment of children and youths with fewer opportunities
• A new hope to families with socially difficult background to see their children take part in better social charges and positions, for their new comprehension of their skills and their role into society

Are you interested in becoming an EPTO member? Curious about who else is part of our network? Want to know more about the application process?

You can find the answers to these questions and more on the Membership section of our website.

Please feel free to contact Ela Suleymangil at membership@epto.org if you'd like to ask anything specific.