The current socio-economic challenges that Europe is facing have multiple effects on young generations. The unemployment, especially increased in the youth population, the gradual marginalisation of some young people, the difficulty of social inclusion of young people from different cultures are important issues that affect, in different ways, all European countries. The socio-economic phenomena that Europe is daily facing also have led to a society that feels increasingly in emergency, precariousness and insecurity. These feelings affect and interact with the crisis affecting the adolescent age, when its reference systems are moving from parent group (the family) to the reference group (their peers). Overall aim of the YOU-ROPE project is to prevent youth problems through a more effective, integrated and coordinated approach to education and social inclusion, to be realised by adopting a model "youth and community development through rites of passage" and by integrating interventions during critical points in children’s transition from childhood to adulthood. Thanks to the improvement of social inclusion and its contribution to the marginalisation prevention, the YOU-ROPE project also intends to engage young persons as part of powerful forces in mentoring younger children. This will effectively contribute to the reduction of the social withdrawal, allowing final beneficiaries to be more confident and competitive in their future access to the labour market. To achieve its goal, the YOU-ROPE project will create 3 Intellectual Outputs. The first IO is a Framework Survey that will allow the consortium to collect important information about Rites of Passage in the partners' countries, and to develop effective guidelines for the model application, useful for organisations who intend to use this information in the future. The second IO is a web platform that will be the privileged instrument to disseminate the OER materials developed during the project's life. The third IO are the Guidelines that will supply information to the youth workers/professionals interested in applying the ROPEs model in their working environment. The direct target involved are youth workers and professionals, training centres, associations, etc. All IOs will be realised involving these social actors. They will be involved as recipients of the dissemination activities, while some of them will be employed during activities as both stakeholders and experts about the topic. The project will involve also adolescents as direct target group during the survey (IO1) and the test-run of the ROPEs Model (IO3).
YOU-ROPE, Youth Rites of Passage in Europe is the result of over two years of reflections about the rites of passage in use in the involved European countries, their analysis, comparison, sharing and pilot implementation through the involvement of hundred young people, who participated actively in its realization from the start-up to the final Multiplier Event, held in Italy in October 2019. The initial YOU-ROPE's concept is based on the ROPE, Rites of Passage Experience Model implemented by The Center for Youth & Community, Inc. (USA), which given its theoretical contribution and constituted the basic reference for the youth community framework implemented within the project. The main aim of YOU-ROPE project have been to prevent youth problems through a more effective, integrated and coordinated approach to education and social inclusion, realised by implementing and adopting a shared model "youth and community development through rites of passage" and by integrating interventions during critical points of transition from childhood to adulthood. Participants n. 6 European organisations: Applicant Coordinator: CEPISS Coop. Soc. (IT); Partners: LabCom – Spin Off UNIFI (IT) Centro Machiavelli S.r.l. – Training Agency and EU Projects Dept – Florence (IT); ETCS Coop. Soc. – Barcelona (ES); ECTE - European Center in Training for Employment - Rethymno (GR); Associatia Psiterra (RO). The project involved mainly educators, youth workers and adolescents as direct target groups during the survey (IO1) and the test-run of the ROPEs Model. To achieve its main objectives, YOU-ROPE created and implemented two core Intellectual Outputs: - IO1 - Framework Survey that allowed to the consortium to collect important information about Rites of Passage in use in the partners' countries, and to develop effective guidelines for the model application, useful for organisations who intend to use this information in the future. - IO3 - Guidelines containing information and instructions for the youth workers/professionals interested in applying the ROPEs model in their working environment. The direct target group involved were youth workers and professionals, secondary schools for the extra-curricular activities, training centers, associations, municipalities especially with their youth policies, etc. All IOs have been realised involving these actors. They have been all addressed as recipients of the dissemination activities and some of them have been also involved during activities both as stakeholders and experts about the project topic. Thanks to the practical and active actions of the six official partners organisations and their associated partners within the local communities of the three involved countries (Italy, Greece, Romania and Spain), YOU-ROPE engaged several hundred participants among young people as part of powerful forces in mentoring the youngest adolescents toward the improvement of their awareness that they belong to a certain community, supporting in this way their social inclusion, giving a concrete contribution to the marginalisation prevention. This result can be considered the main impact that gave a real contribution to reduce the social withdrawal, allowing to all final beneficiaries involved to feel more recognised and integrated into their belonging communities. Thanks to these overall results, YOU-ROPE can be considered a successful project that tested a good practice, which could have good impact on the whole involved communities as long-term benefit, especially because it acted by transferring pathways to youth workers, teachers/trainers for promoting "positive" rites of passage practices, that can be surely adopted with good results by young generations.