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Description
The project “Laboratório de Arte e Cidadania” proposes the development of spaces for artistic creation and civic participation aimed at 70 youth people in conflict with the law (compliance with educational tutelary measures and in prison context), especially those that reveal unsuccessful paths and dropout, promoting the activation of social and personal skills for inclusion and employability. The project aims to certify youth people through participation in artistic workshops (theater, music, fine arts…) and different thematic seminars, in an innovative methodological approach developed in partnership with the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto.
Summary of project results
This proposal is based on the knowledge acquired through the project ECOAR_Employability Skills and Arts project, promoted by PELE under the Active Citizenship Programme (2014-2016). The project aims to deepen the previous experience by integrating it into a transdisciplinary and multidirectional strategy, based on artistic creation and civic participation, with the aim of contributing to the processes of empowerment and inclusion of young people with judicial/penal measures: 1-young people with non-institutional tutelary measures; 2-young people with institutional guardianship measures - educational centre; 3-young people serving time in prison.
Considering that 75% of young people (12-16 years old) with educational guardianship measures are already monitored by the Child and Youth Protection Commissions, that 50 % are already in residential care, and that 31% re-offend after two years, the predominance of risk contexts and the presence of different layers of vulnerability in this group is clear, as is the relative ineffectiveness of existing instruments. It is necessary to create an intervention model that brings together the different sectors and all the stakeholders for effective, sustainable and continuous action for social inclusion. The basis for the development of this model is artistic creation, which is unanimously recognised (ECOAR evaluation) as a facilitator in working with groups with these characteristics (behavioural maladjustment, difficulties in adapting and some resistance to change).
Failure and dropping out of school are also widespread: the Ministry of Justice report reveals that the prison population has low levels of qualification (over 50 % have not reached the 3rd cycle, 26% have only completed the 1st cycle and 6.7 % are illiterate) and reaffirms the high educational and rehabilitative potential that training and socio-cultural activities have in the prison context. In addition to this data, the data collected during the ECOAR project cross-references these dimensions with artistic methodologies, attesting to their effectiveness: 99% of the young people revealed that, after taking part in the training/certification activities, they were motivated to join other training/professional activities.
This proposal is based on the knowledge acquired through the project ECOAR_Employability Skills and Arts project, promoted by PELE under the Active Citizenship Programme (2014-2016). The project aims to deepen the previous experience by integrating it into a transdisciplinary and multidirectional strategy, based on artistic creation and civic participation, with the aim of contributing to the processes of empowerment and inclusion of young people with judicial/penal measures: 1-young people with non-institutional tutelary measures; 2-young people with institutional guardianship measures - educational centre; 3-young people serving time in prison.
Considering that 75% of young people (12-16 years old) with educational guardianship measures are already monitored by the Child and Youth Protection Commissions, that 50 % are already in residential care, and that 31% re-offend after two years, the predominance of risk contexts and the presence of different layers of vulnerability in this group is clear, as is the relative ineffectiveness of existing instruments. It is necessary to create an intervention model that brings together the different sectors and all the stakeholders for effective, sustainable and continuous action for social inclusion. The basis for the development of this model is artistic creation, which is unanimously recognised (ECOAR evaluation) as a facilitator in working with groups with these characteristics (behavioural maladjustment, difficulties in adapting and some resistance to change).
Failure and dropping out of school are also widespread: the Ministry of Justice report reveals that the prison population has low levels of qualification (over 50 % have not reached the 3rd cycle, 26% have only completed the 1st cycle and 6.7 % are illiterate) and reaffirms the high educational and rehabilitative potential that training and socio-cultural activities have in the prison context. In addition to this data, the data collected during the ECOAR project cross-references these dimensions with artistic methodologies, attesting to their effectiveness: 99% of the young people revealed that, after taking part in the training/certification activities, they were motivated to join other training/professional activities.
On the basis of the external evaluation report, we can say that the objectives set for the groups directly targeted - young people in situations of conciliation with the justice system - were achieved on a more immediate level, materialised in the activation and certification of transversal personal and social skills for employability. A total of 68 young people were certified with Level I, who, in addition to their situation of serving time, had a history of failure and/or dropping out of school. By the time the final report was submitted, two young people had been certified at Level II, but they will have continued their work throughout 2022.
In another line of the project, four mentors were integrated into the teams, one from the partner organisation Saber Compreender, all with life journeys close to those of the young people involved but with inspiring narratives of overcoming. Throughout the project, links were developed both with the University of Porto''s mentoring programme and with Aproximar (which works in prisons) in order to share methodologies and good practices.
The project also included a process of individual and collective internal reflection that led to the creation of PELE''s Needs Diagnosis and Strategic Action Plan, which was considered an important process of empowerment for the organisation.