Together with Fondazione Unipolis to improve young peolple’s life skills

Education and training

November 24, 2022

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How the project works

Unipolis Foundation launched in May 2022 Bella Storia. La tua, a 3-year training course aimed at 50 male and female students in Campania and Calabria between the ages of 14 and 19. The project is structured as a true path to empowerment, in which the selected candidates are eligible for a scholarship, an online educational workshop and in-person camp, and constant mentoring with social local- based educators.

What Sineglossa did in Campania and Calabria

Sineglossa was called in as an operating partner, along with other organizations working in the field of education, culture, creativity, youth leadership , entrepreneurship and guidance (e.g., Cooperativa Kiwi and Itinerari Paralleli) .

We joined the educational offerings of the “skills gymnasium” built by the project by bringing our know-how on artistic processes and techniques for life skills education in adolescents.

In Naples and Locri, we offered 50 students an art and soft skills workshop, in collaboration with Giacomo Giovannetti, artist and elementary school teacher.

We had already collaborated with Giacomo on several projects (YES!, Artwalks, Be Your Hero); the last one, in 2021, was the pilot version of the one proposed to Fondazione Unipolis. A workshop on discovering one’s inner hero or heroine: Be Your Hero Art Skills (here more details about the entire project Be Your Hero)

Art healthy carrier of life skills

This workshop, and the methodology in which it is embedded, starts from the premise that school is an environment of growth and identity development for the entire “educating” community that lives it – faculty, students, extracurricular staff. And that identity development is possible if the school – or the educational realities that support it – create and offer experiences in which to train one’s emotional, relational and cognitive skills. That is what since 2020 WHO has defined as Life Skills.

Art is a "healthy carrier" of life skills: when you produce or invent a work of art, you necessarily stimulate your creative side. Obstacles and unknowns become opportunities for discovery, while the search for meaning to convey is an exercise in empathy.

Alessia Tripaldi, sociologist and trainer

The workshop led by Giovannetti involves the use of a visual book (designed by Giacomo and supervised by Sineglossa), in which through a series of exercises and creative games the participants are guided to get to know their own non-identity and, based on this process of denial, identify instead what their strengths, their superpowers, are.
At the end of an artistic work divided into 5 steps, in which different materials are used – from glue and scissors to acetate sheet, from copy paper to a photographic tool (camera or smartphone) – the result is the representation of oneself in the figure of a hero or heroine and the sharing of the artistic output with the rest of the group.

Recently, reading in Alley Oop, an italian magazine led by Il Sole 24ore, we found interesting the data and interpretive frames provided by human resources expert John Bersin, who talks about “professions without routines” and the “power skills economy.” By this expression he refers to the growing demand for skills other than technical ones even for jobs that, while technical such as those of scientists, engineers and programmers, are at the same time also service and communication activities. The power skills he identifies in light of years of experience in human resources for American multinationals are optimism, curiosity, generosity, happiness, but also ethics, kindness, patience. And, of course, empathy. Quoting Brene Brown, he argues that our economy evolved from muscle to brain to heart: in the 1800s and early 1900s we were in the industrial age, that is: the age of muscle. We needed workers with strength, dexterity and physical endurance. Then, in the 1960s and 2000s we entered the information age: the age of brains, which demanded analytical skills, raw intelligence and mental processing power. Today, thanks to automation, we need workers with empathy: the age of the heart, to manage concentration, productivity and performance.

All this theme to return to us and our practical activities to develop empathy:

You cannot have a horizontal, frontal lecture in which you explain what empathy is. You need to have an experience and, then, discuss that experience, to realize that you have been empathetic.

Alessia Tripaldi, sociologist and trainer

Voices of those who were there

Mi aspettavo qualcosa di più pesante, formale, invece si è scoperto molto più semplice e divertente. C'è un contatto diretto tra noi, mentor e istruttori. Ho imparato cose su me stesso che non sapevo prima di entrare, è stato come fare un'esplorazione all'interno del mio cervello.

Avevo voglia di fare nuove esperienze e mi è piaciuto come ci siamo potuti aprire con Giacomo. Ho scoperto di essere un eroe solitario ma che allo stesso tempo ha bisogno dell'aiuto degli altri per combattere, perché da solo non può fare niente.

Mi aveva molto incuriosito la durata del progetto, 3 anni. Mi è piaciuta tantissimo la presentazione e il collage, ho fatto cose che al di fuori di questo contesto credo non avrei mai fatto. Ho scoperto di essere meno insicura di quel che credevo di essere, e che se mi lascio andare posso anche avere degli amici.

Sono partito un po' scoraggiato ma dopo il primo esercizio che ci ha fatto fare Giacomo è cambiata completamente la mia prospettiva e sono soddisfatto di aver partecipato. Dietro a qualsiasi cosa che abbiamo fatto, anche quello che poteva sembrare un disegno fatto a caso, abbiamo trovato un vero significato. Per il lavoro sull'acetato ho scelto lo stemma del mio paese, che mi ricorda da dove provengo. E' l'unica bandiera che ha la Bibbia aperta in un salmo, che riporta "Dio, Patria, Libertà".

Per qualcuno sicuramente è stata un’esperienza confusa, per altri espressiva, per altri ancora rilassante, di puro inconscio e libertà. Io dico la verità: finora avevo condotto questi laboratori con gruppi più piccoli e non mi aspettavo un clima di caos e esplosione come oggi. Ma l'artista vive di opera aperta. Umberto Eco parlava di opera aperta per dire che l’opera - un quadro, una poesia - è davvero arte se continua nel tempo a insegnarti qualcosa, se non finisce lì il suo messaggio. Resiste alla storia qualcosa che rimane aperto, lasciando la libertà a ciascuno di leggerci un valore. Ecco, probabilmente non mi aspettavo di vivere questa esperienza in un clima confusionario, ma ci sta. Anni di arteterapia mi hanno insegnato a vivere le opere e la creatività come uno specchio, in cui ognuno può ritrovarci se stesso.

Now what happens

We leave the floor to Elisa Paluan of Fondazione Unipolis, who explains how the project continues in the coming months.

With respect to the “skills gym,” at the end of the school year, the same young people will be involved in the second camp – in which they will experience the Be Your Hero Sport & Life Skills methodology (which can be downloaded from here) – as well as in a couple of online meetings with Alessia Tripaldi, head of research and training at Sineglossa and creator of the methodology, in January and April.

With mentoring, we start immediately in December with comparisons and accompaniment thanks to partners Cooperativa Dedalus in Campania and Kyosei Cooperativa sociale in Calabria to design the individual plan of eachз and immediately begin to imagine their role as adults in society.

With the community engagement, followed for us by Itinerari Paralleli in Campania and Cooperativa Kiwi in Calabria, we took the opportunity of the camps to start a collective work that will lead them to draw the map of cultural innovation of their territories with trips, comparisons, testimonies and many moments of sharing.