Şahin F., Cemaloğlu N. (Executive), Sönmez E., Yenel K.
Erasmus Project, 2016 - 2018
From 2013 to 2015 a European project was held (in Italy
promoted, among others, by the Beniamino Cooperative, in close collaboration
with the Slow Food Island Elba Convivium and the Porto Azzurro House of Reclusion).
The project which had the title "Taste of Freedom" also involved some
foreign partners, including Lithuania, Turkey, Portugal and the island of Gran
Canaria. From that experience emerged the need to open a reflection on the role
of vocational training and work in the prison system and on experiences of
local roots as a resource for greater effectiveness of the training system aimed
at risky social categories such as that of the detainees. From these
assumptions were born the Project Cooking for freedom that aims to build and
promote training programs in partner countries with the aim of stimulating
synergies aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the integration capacity of
the prison and training system.
The project partners have identified and shared some
premises without which it is difficult to think that professional training in
prison can become a real opportunity for reintegration:
• given the particularity of the reference target, there is
the risk that training will become a mere filling activity, with a low
rehabilitation and reintegration value;
• vocational training activities require strong support
of a network external to the prison institution because only in this way can
they be really effective;
• often some paths may be affected by the subjective
difficulties expressed by the subjects to whom they are addressed, linked to
their particular condition and lack of familiarity with a structured working
contexts;
• on many occasions there is a risk of corporate distrust
about the potential of the recipients and the effectiveness of the courses;
• the possibility, also for young people included in the
classical training courses, to integrate their collaboration with institutional
realities and experiment in integration paths, can increase empowerment and
investment in their training path.
Following the analysis and sharing of the main problems
identified, concrete objectives of the project are:
• create and test models of pilot training courses, built
with the collaboration between the prison institution, educational institutions
and a wide territorial network of associations and companies that deal with
catering and food;
• develop strategic skills of qualified personnel in order
to achieve integration among the various organizations, to identify the needs
of the labor market and achieve the final objective in relation to them;
• develop a network, also at the EU level, capable of promoting
the reintegration of trained prisoners into work;
• promote the exchange of best practices between the
partnership, reproducible and useful at European level, in order to promote
adult learning processes in detention and a more effective collaboration
between the prison institution and training institutions;
• gathering useful recommendations to support effective
labour policies and the inclusion of disadvantaged adults;
• promote internships and internships that integrate the
presence of subjects coming from classical training courses and adult subjects
coming from specific training courses.
The project partners were chosen according to different
criteria. Some of them participated in the previous Project "Taste of
Freedom" and for this reason they wanted to take part in a new project
that somehow was the continuation and deepening (Cooperative Beniamino, Slow
Food Elba Island, Turkey, Portugal). Other partners were contacted on the basis
of their experiences in prison and in training. In fact, in the context of
Cooking for Freedom, Lithuania is also involved, with an association that takes
care of reintegrating it to work through the management of a salad restaurant
bar in Vilnius. Each partner, however, operates at various levels within the prison
institutions of their country of origin.
As part of the partnership, the tasks necessary to carry out
the project was well distributed according to the skills of each one:
- Skills in research and quality control
- Ability to contact international institutions to
disseminate results
- Ability to carry out high-quality training for social
workers
- Ability to disseminate and evaluate the results of the
project.
In each partner country, dissemination and dissemination
initiatives have been organized and the website that collects the experiences
made is active. Furthermore, the Guide for Guidelines for the organization of professional
courses in prison is being drafted, a goal of the project.