The Cave

The Cave is a youth association founded in 2022 and operates in sectors of high social relevance, thanks to European planning and the development of innovative and often self-financed non-formal education paths. We believe it is important to invest our time and energy in the local community, in order to develop it, but at the same time improve the European citizenship of Sicilians. To achieve our goal it was necessary to create a network of partners at a local level (associations, schools, universities, the Municipality of Messina) and at an international level (associations, municipalities, universities), as well as accumulate experience by organizing and taking part in numerous and varied projects , events and individual training, also through the Erasmus+ program and the organizational meetings of the National Youth Agency. Starting from 2018, the objectives of The Cave have focused on increasing youth employment and on developing the number of NEETs (young people who do not study, work or are engaged in any educational activity), which in Messina have reached worrying rates, in particular between the ages of 15 and 29 (21.7% employed and 31% neet). In this regard, The Cave provides on a daily basis a series of services based on non-formal education and oriented to NEETs, students, young operators in the field of humanities, social entrepreneurship and volunteering, as well as young people from situations of disadvantage (disability, poverty, social exclusion). We organize group workshops and individual meetings aimed at developing basic and transversal, entrepreneurial, linguistic and digital skills, as well as inclusion and social aggregation. In these workshops, ample space is also given to the promotion of the opportunities offered by the Erasmus+ programme. Our other goals are: - Develop the creative potential and basic and transversal skills of young people; - Create the conditions for active involvement of young people in the social, economic and cultural life of society; - Support youth initiatives in various sectors; - Develop international youth cooperation, collaborating with foreign youth associations; - Cooperate for the social inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities; - Valuing cultural diversity; - Improving active local and European citizenship; - Increase the European feeling among young people.