The partner associations, through the "Campo dei Miracoli" project, intended to make better the quality of life for people with Down syndrome, their families and the communities, creating innovative horticultural therapy projects inside historical gardens, ideal locations where nature, history and beauty are the basic ingredients to achieve a real transformation process, and where the characters of the Pinocchio's tale accompany the participants in a real inclusion process that also enhances our cultural heritage, historical, artistic and environmental. The project aims at enhancing the abilities of people with Down syndrome, realizing growth paths that contribute to a process of inclusion on a national and international level, taking into account gender equality, with the involvement of local and international institutions and creating a network between therapeutic gardens inside public/private historical gardens. The project consists of an innovative two-year horticultural therapy course, divided into thematic modules that are defined in according to the seasons and to the botanical cadence, alternating a technical and a practical phases, with the coordination of a horticultural therapist and the aid of specialized gardeners. This project aims to revive the successes of horticultural therapy initiatives aimed at people with intellectual and relational disabilities, Down syndrome, autism and depression, in an innovative experience ever created in a historical garden, and through recovering any abandoned areas, it can promote a new type of enjoyment and museum education based on social inclusion and integration. Therefore, the project aims at the realization of a therapeutic garden, accessible, easily usable and consistent to the host environment for design and plant solutions, and training of staff predisposed to its maintenance and to perform the activities. The Campo dei Miracoli will be rich of activities, as well as the design and construction of a therapeutic garden, through the organization of: -Innovative courses for the training of specialized staff (horticultural therapists, gardeners, maintenance technicians, educational promoters, etc.) to be carried out at national and European level; -Training lessons and practices in the short term issues (video, interviews, targeted guided tours in Italian and European historical gardens); -Workshops; -Realization of a good practices manual at European level with inter and trans-disciplinary nature; -Realization of a virtual European platform of e-learning; -Production of "Zecchini d'oro" result of laboratories and cultivated gardens (plants, flowers, fruits, perfumes, fragrances, conditioners, oils, etc.); -Organization of promotional and informational events aimed at crowdfunding, online promotion and offline activities (websites, social networks, press conferences, interviews, etc.), lectures, debates, seminars, meetings. The whole project is based on close and interdisciplinary cooperation between all the European partners and with public and private institutions, national and international, to develop an innovative working model, sustainable and transferable to similar situations at the European level, in order to create an international network between historical gardens, where the horticultural therapy activities can represent a virtuous comparing circuit. It will also be essential the promote and increase cooperation as well as the inclusion between people with Down syndrome and normal people, by encouraging participation in the activities, in order to prevent forms of marginalization and helping to develop a sense of responsibility and respect for the diversity and physicaland intellectual disabilities, as a fundamental value for tolerance and protection of human rights. The results expected from the project include the identification of common guidelines in best practices reproducible and versatile, determining and covering different realities, through the various activities proposed at national and international level. These results will be widely disseminated through various media channels, online and offline, to make them public and recognizable, accessible and actionable. The impacts will be different, based on the various proposals and activities all matches and events are deliberately open to the public and promoted through the ripples and offline circuits, involving internal and external participants to the Associations participants. Other expectations are aimed at a positive and concrete response by direct participants to the specific project, through the creation of new skills, theoretical and practical, designed to develop, enhance and strengthen your self-confidence in a work of locally active staff, regional, European and international.
The European project "Campo dei Miracoli", concived to promote innovative ortotherapeutical practices and other related activities in European historical gardens for people with Down's Syndrome and other physical, intellectual and relational disabilities and able-bodied persons, with respect of gender equality, inclusion, creative and interdisciplinary education. The project was conceived in spring 2016, during the first edition of Trisome Games in Florence. The project has been successfully finished, with the goal achieved to improve the quality of life and the social and professional inclusion of people with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 50 and their families, promoting activities, carried out mainly within important European historical gardens, in order to encourage innovative teaching practices and experiment with new forms of museum teaching. In this way, contributing to the enhancement of cultural, historical, artistic and environmental heritage in partner's countries, the project has obtained in 2018 the important recognition of the Italian Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo (MIBACT) on the occasion of the European Year of Cultural Heritage. Achieving these important results has been made possible by the close collaboration of all Project partners. With consolidated experience in the different key areas of the project, each of them has fostered a fruitful exchange of ideas and good practices. The main thread of the entire project was the fairy tale of the world's most famous puppet, Pinocchio, who, with its metamorphosis, accompanied the participants in a real process of inclusion and personal growth, through the significant naming of outputs and workshops. All project partners have promoted activities in their territorial contexts focused on horticultualtherapy: educational meetings, experiential visits, educational courses and workshops that, thanks to the collaboration with important public and private institutions and experienced professionals in the sector, have allowed people with disabilities, with able-bodied students, in fostering a process of learning new botanical and agronomic skills and development of the five senses and their relational skills, thanks to the contact with nature and plants. The close comparison and collaboration between the partner countries has been essential even for the structuring of a course, perfectly transferable in other territorial contexts, aimed at training specialized operators in the field of horticultualtherapy who accompanied the project participants in carrying out activities such as the project and maintenance of therapeutic gardens, with a particular interest in the preservation and enhancement of the rich botanical heritage of gardens and orchards present in many historical gardens. The activities promoted in the three partner's countries have also allowed to develop other activities, such as journalistic writing workshops and artisanal workshops in jewellery or creative reuse of scraps from textile processing - which, always starting from the botanical theme, has involved the participants in further activities, made possible thanks to the synergies and collaborations activated during the two-year project that, as a tangible product of what has been carried out, have ended with the realization of particular "golden ticks" that, recalling the fairy tale of Pinocchio, emphasize the concreteness that characterized the whole project. An international scientific committee, made up of doctors, psychologists and members from each project partner, monitored all the activities and the beneficial effects found on the participants that, at the end of each activities, have received a certificate to certify the new skills acquired. Each project activity and mobility and its results have been made transferable through a specifically implemented site and an online sharing and e-learning platform. The videos, made specifically by professionals in the sector and disseminated through the main social media to promote project's results, are very relevant to show the activities and mobility carried out by the participants in Campo dei Miracoli Project and in the visual realization of the philosophy of the Project, represented by the metamorphosis of Pinocchio from puppet to child: https://www.campodeimiracoli.eu/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkxA3Zy2BZo&fbclid=IwAR087q2hrrSRLKwa-CjCumwmJoQgV5YCmrnnhUDxjjN7bNxRTIGWbnVnF94