#socialandhumanservices

Never Alone

Launched in May 2015 at the Annual General Assembly of the European Foundation Centre (EFC), and falling under the European Program for Integration and Migration (EPIM), Never Alone is a joint initiative of a group of Italian and European Foundations to ensure the welfare and facilitate the inclusion of unaccompanied migrant children arriving in Europe

In Italy Never Alone was promoted by Fondazione Cariplo, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, Fondazione CON IL SUD, Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Fondazione Peppino Vismara, and Enel cuore.

The aforesaid Italian promoting organizations allocated 9,650,000 euros in total to back projects strengthening and innovating assistance to unaccompanied migrant children. The eight projects that were selected for funding among those received under each of the first two editions of the Never Alone calls for proposals (2016-2017 and 2018-2019) have involved in aggregate partnerships of over 120 organizations, including no less than 20 public entities, and have been conducted in 12 and 8 Italian regions, respectively.

The eight projects funded under the 2016 call were completed between April 2019 and April 2020, except for some actions that were progressing on schedule but were extended to December 2020 due to the pandemic.

The eight projects funded under the 2018 call started in April 2019 and are still ongoing. They are expected to be completed between the end of 2021 and 2022. These projects are backed also by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation that has joined the initiative as funder.

 

 

 

 

2016 Call 

 

2018 Call

Funds provided by the foundations  

€ 3,500,000

€ 3,200,000

Grant caps and floors

€ 150,000 - € 700,000

€ 100,000 - € 450,000

Selection steps  

2-step call

1-step call

Expected duration of the projects  

24-36 months

24-36 months

Age group of project beneficiaries 

17 – 19 years

15 – 21 years

Applications received 

124

59

No. of projects funded 

8

8

Projects conducted in  

12 Italian regions

6 Italian regions

Total number of organizations in partnerships  

75

65

Scope of the projects

Transition to adulthood:

  • support to migrant children in their journey to independent adult life;
  • reinforcement and dissemination of volunteer guardian and foster care programs;
  • care for migrant girls.

Transition to adulthood:

  • support to migrant children in their journey to independent adult life and transition into the world of work to ease their social inclusion.

 

Since Never Alone started, over 3,600 youths have been helped through the funded projects, which have included provision of:

  • over 1,000 activities geared to facilitate employment (traineeships, etc.)
  • some 600 accommodations to enable independent or semi-independent living
  • education and training to some 2,000 migrant youngsters.

To facilitate social inclusion and independence of unaccompanied migrant children, the Never Alone promoting organizations identified further key areas for action, i.e.:

- Volunteer guardians. In February 2019, together with other national players already active in the field, the promoting organizations launched an action plan to support volunteer guardians. Efforts focused on providing assistance and resources making it easier for guardians to get documents for their wards from embassies (PASS4YOU); and on testing, in three Italian regions (Piedmont, Tuscany and Sicily), forms of support to guardians who take care of unaccompanied migrant youths before and after their coming of age. Both these actions were concluded on April 30, 2021. In the meantime, another project was started in March 2021. Named Tutori in ReteA Network of Guardians, this project is aimed at promoting and supporting the formation of new associations of volunteer legal guardians and building a national network of associations and/or informal groups of volunteer legal guardians starting from the informal groups of guardians across the country.

Capacity building efforts to help organizations change the narrative around migration through targeted actions promoting a narrative which is more oriented to social inclusion and facilitates social integration of migrant youths. Through a collaboration started in 2020 with the International Center for Policy Advocacy (ICPA), and supported also by the Social Change Initiative, ad-hoc resources were made available for Italian users to this end (www.narrativechange.org/IT).

In the third phase of Never Alone (2021-2022), actions geared to ease transition to adulthood and help migrant youths become independent continue to be the mainstay as in the prior two phases. On this front, the foundations backing Never Alone work together with the social enterprise Con i Bambini, supporting projects selected under the call titled “For a viable tomorrow” that are in continuity with previous efforts. To boost the impact of the actions taken in the previous two stages, endeavors to strengthen voluntary guardianship and capacity building of organizations to change the narrative about migration also continue to be supported under the Never Alone initiative.

Other actions in line with the purposes of Never Alone were also backed. For more information visit https://minoristranieri-neveralone.it/

 

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