The CASYE Training of Trainers took place from the 14th to the 17th of September in Milan, and was organized by Diesis Network and Fondazione Triulza, with the support of IARS.
The objective of this ToT was for the participants to get familiar with the outcomes of IO 1, in particular the Research, the collection of Good Practices and the CASYE Mentoring Programme Model Framework. The training was a mix of frontal learning, practical exercises, study visits and workshops. Each partner of the CASYE project participated with 3 delegates from their countries, a staff member, a youth trainer, a researcher, an external expert of the field, a member or an intern.
The first day of the workshop was a set of presentations of the organisations and the participants and team-building activities to learn more about each other and their expectations.
On the mornings of the second and third day, the participants became familiar with the components of the CASYE research and collection of good practices and in particular about the CASYE framework. To acquire the methodology and the items of the framework, each partner organized a practical exercise for the others. This allowed all the participants to assimilate all the outcomes of the project so far and to learn from interactive activities.
On the afternoons of the second and third days, field studies were organized by Fondazione Triulza to two of the realities they selected for the CASYE collection of good practices. The cases selected are two social enterprises in the Cultural and Creative field of the Milan area: Industria Scenica and Adriano Community Centre.
Industria Scenica is a cultural enterprise that enhances the creative action of individuals and communities through social performance to generate development and cohesion. It designs and creates paths that integrate the performing arts with the social, training with the personal and recreational development of the individual and the community. Industria Scenica works with the aim of supporting and strengthening the well-being of the Community, placing itself as an active subject of Social and Cultural Actions, promoting and managing Initiatives, Services, Products, Educational and Artistic Projects.
The Adriano Community Center (ACC), located in the homonymous district of Milan, is an urban redevelopment project carried out by the Proges Cooperative. It aims at creating a community hub: space to facilitate the economic, social and health development of the neighbourhood. Adriano Community Centre wishes to create a unique integration model, innovative at the national and international levels.
These visits allowed all the participants to discover how the practices were born, the challenges they had to face, how they are organized and how they work, their main successes and which are their plans for the future. To visit these organisations was essential to understand how the entrepreneurs managed to create successful social businesses and the impact these have on the communities.
On the last day, the CASYE partnership organized a co-creation workshop to draft the CASYE policy recommendations on how to better support young people in becoming social entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative sector. Fondazione Triulza invited national stakeholders from social enterprises and actors from the social economy, cultural and creative industries, universities, foundations, associations, banks, private sectors and research centers. The aim of each workshop was to brainstorm around three different topics that will help the CASYE partners to draft the policy recommendations. The 3 proposed workshops were:
- Workshop 1 – Why invest in youth social entrepreneurship in the creative sector? Fondazione
- Workshop 2 – Creative cultural industries as a new engine of growth and vehicle for empowerment community
- Workshop 3 – How can cultural social entrepreneurship be promoted among young people?
The co-creation workshop was a success as the participants found the discussions stimulating and great inputs were collected to feed the upcoming CASYE policy recommendations.
