Documentation
Youth Committed to Climate
Methodological guide aimed at teachers, educators and animators of the youth sector achieved in 2016 in the framework of the project Erasmus + "Committed Youth to Climate"
Authors: Nadia Fellini, Iana Tzankova, Bernadberoy Marie, Marguerite Capelle, Tecla Fornasier, Gil Vannieuwenhoven, Marilena Gaucan, Marcela Ghiuta
Youth Committed to Climate is a strategic partnership project, supported by the European Union’s Erasmus+ Program, which aims to promote cooperation, innovation and the sharing of good practices for the benefit of youth. The authors of this guide are four educational organizations from four European countries: the Petits Débrouillards in France, the Petits Débrouillards in Belgium, the Romanian association Renato and the Italian social cooperative Controvento. Our organizations work actively in the informal education sector in our respective countries. For some time, we have also been working together on international projects. While we are different in many ways, we share the same central concerns: youth and issues surrounding societal transition. The contents of this guide are the result of a collaborative work that involved us and researchers from the University of Bologna’s psychology department and Aix-Marseille University. According to the priority issues we have identified, it is organized by topic and in a cross-disciplinary way, enabling any stakeholder working with youth to find what they are looking for.
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Genesis of the Science and Society Alliance in France: towards a conscious and recognised collaboration between actors of research and civil society
Article published in the n. 3/2015 journal "Epidemiology & Prevention"
Authors: Nadia Fellini and Elie Faroult
In the last two decades, the debate on the meaning of science in relation to societies that create it, nourish it, and benefit from it, focused on civil society’s ability to produce knowledge. This yielded first the concept of participatory science and later the wider concept of participatory research. Throughout Europe, numerous collective experimentations have generated countless interactions, and new interfaces between the world of research and civil society are constantly being created. But in spite of the proliferation of these experiences, a paradox slows down their acknowledgment and legitimation. On the one hand, these interactions often go unseen and unrecognized by the institutions, public policies, and even at times their very creators. On the other hand, scientists, are still overwhelmingly wary of civil society and, perceiving only its intellectual deficit and lack of comprehension, they fail to consider the study and development of these interactions as being of primary importance. The Sciences and Society Alliance, which was recently founded in France, provides a platform where these collaborative experiences can be collected, studied, supported, communicated, and institutionally acknowledged. The launch of this process, which is soon to be European in scope, answers the need to bring science into the democratic path tread by the societies that create it. In its ability to compose diversity, this process is an example of deep democracy.
I Young Citizen in Europe: an experience of Positive Youth Development
Poster presented in 2014 at the 10th Conference S.I.P.CO "Building Solidary and Sustainable Communities - New Challenges for the Community Psychology"
Authors: Nadia Fellini and Chiara Del Barna
The poster summarizes the results of the evaluation, conducted by the researchers of the Laboratory of Community Psychology of the Department of Psychology (Operating Unit of Cesena) of the University of Bologna during the project I Young Citizen in Europe.
I Young Citizen in Europe
Video that collects photographic portraits of the project participants
Photos by Mathieu Goradesky
I Young Citizen in Europe is a participatory project coordinated by Controvento in 2013 with the support of the EU Youth in Action Programme - Action 4.6 Partnerships - and three local authorities. For one year, 365 young people collaborated with each other and drew up proposals addressed to local institutions to make their cities more sustainable. During the process, technicians and administrators from the municipalities of Forlì, Cesena and Rimini were involved. Researchers from the Department of Psychology of the University of Bologna monitored the process and evaluated the impact in terms of empowerment and youth civic participation. During the project, the photographer Mathieu Goradesky has immortalized the young participants contributing to the construction of a poster of faces and ideas of young people living in Europe today. The portraits were exhibited during the final events of the project in each partner city, during the event “Settimana del Buon Vivere” in Forlì and in the course of public events dedicated to the themes of youth and civic participation.
Sustainability in a Suitcase - Participatory Design of a Portable Laboratory on Sustainability
Presentation of the project Sustainability in a Suitcase held at the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna (MAMbo) on the occasion of the final conference of the Comenius project "Acquiring Key Competences through Heritage Education" (2011)
Author: Nadia Fellini
The project Sustainability in a Suitcase, funded by the Emilia Romagna Region and the Institute of Cultural Heritage within the framework of the Regional Project "Science and Technology in Emilia Romagna", is the result of a highly integrated work involving Controvento, who coordinated the project, ITIS "Blaise Pascal" and the Museum of Natural Sciences in Cesena. The innovative character of the project lies in the fact that young people involved, students aged 15-16 years old, were not only the beneficiaries of the training, but participated in the design and the production of the content of the suitcase and discussed and shared it with each other and with middle school students with a peer-to-peer approach. In this way, students, usually beneficiaries of culture, during the project became producers of culture.
Narrating Science at Pre-School
Presentation of the project and article published in the Proceedings of the "VIII National Conference on Science Communication" held in 2009 at the City of Science in Naples
Author: Nadia Fellini
At the kindergarten, children experience the first steps towards autonomy of movement and thought. This is an important phase on which it is possible to introduce science education that aims to encourage the attainment of a method to explore the world around them and that allows to build critical knowledge. Since 2002, Controvento has proposed to Preschools in the Municipality of Cesena a complex project involving children, teachers and parents, allowing to experience an undogmatic working method based on cooperation.
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Young European within the Building of the Knowledge-based Society
Article published in the Proceedings of the "VII National Conference on Science Communication" held in 2008 at the Hotel della Città in Forli
Authors: Nadia Fellini and Andrea Cerroni
Gathered together in 2000 in Lisbon, the Heads of State of the European Union launched the objective of making Europe "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world" by 2010. In this context, the European project "Young European within the Building of the Knowledge-based Society", coordinated in Italy by Controvento, was born. Commissioned by the French EU Presidency with the aim to consult young people on how to build a knowledge-based society, the project involved three hundred young people in twenty-four EU countries and laid the foundation of the largest project of participatory democracy achieved with young people.
Add a seat at the table
Logbook of the educational project carried out in 2005 along with a class of the State Professional Institute "C. Macrelli" with the contribution of Coop C'Entro Anch'Io
Author: Nadia Fellini
A 360° exploration of the planet "nutrition" realized together with a group of students, an association of cultural mediators, a psychiatrist, a nutritionist, a psychomotor therapist and a community educator.