InformaGiovani - IG

The association for social promotion “Informagiovani” was established at the end of the year 2001 by a group of volunteers who have been running the city youth information centre of Palermo since November 2000. It is today the coordinating body of an European network of different organizations aimed to promote volunteering as a tool for social action. The network has members in 21 different European countries and is supported by the EACEA (Executive Agency for Culture, Education and Audiovisual) of the European Commission, in the frame of the action Ka3 of Erasmus Plus programme. The association has the following aims: - foster and promote human and civil rights, with particular attention to child and youth rights, as endorsed by the UN Convention for children rights; - promote the right to information and participation of youth, as endorsed by the European Chart for youth information; - defending social and collective rights with particular attention to youth rights; - promote local and international volunteering as a tool for social change and social inclusion. During its life, the association run different activities of information, training and counselling: - rounds of seminars in secondary and high schools on European programmes for youth; - rounds of seminars in high schools and universities on international volunteering as a tool for social change and development; - seminars on National and International Civil Service in the frame of the “students fairs”; - participation in the project and implementation phase of the training course “Do it right”, in the frame of the Human Rights Education programme of the Council of Europe; - a round of seminars on youth entrepreneurship - the publication of the multimedia guide “European citizens – Guide to the international programmes in the field of culture, training, job, human rights and participation of youth” - the online guide “Right to information”, available on www.right-to-information-eu - different seminars under Youth in Action to share experiences and practices among youth organizations active in the field of social inclusion - different youth exchanges in the frame of Youth in Action to promote social inclusion of disadvantaged youth - two rounds of training courses for social worker and members of the Juvenile Justice Department on the use of youth projects as a tool for social rehabilitation of young offenders. Furthermore, the association is the content manager of “Bancadatigiovani” the Italian youth database available for free on the Internet with more than 23.000 registered users The database and its back and front office service has been labelled as best and excellence practice in the field of information and counselling for youth, ranked as one of the 20 better services in Italy. Since 2009, the Association is member of the Anna Lindh Euro-mediterranean Foundation for dialogue between cultures and since 2010 it’s member of Libera, national network against mafia. The association has nowadays two main fields of action: Information activities and social volunteering activities. In the frame of the first one, we manage the mentioned youth information database for Italian users and several newsletters to spread info about youth work all over Europe (more than 5.000 subscribers in Europe). We also co-ordinate the youth information centre of the city of Palermo, with three front-offices in the city. With the second field of action we aim to promote social volunteering as a tool for inclusion of disadvantaged or marginalized youth by means of local, national and international activities. We organize about 25 international workcamps in Italy and have established bilateral co-operation agreements with more than 100 voluntary service organizations worldwide to send our volunteers. Since 2006 we organize youth exchanges and seminars for youth and social leaders with the aim to empower social actors on the use of volunteering as tool for social inclusion and rehabilitation. We run two or three exchanges every year in Italy and we send up to nine groups abroad. Since 2008 we permanently co-operate with different bodies of the Italian Ministry of Justice, responsible for rehabilitation of young offenders, providing both volunteering opportunities to young offenders and training/seminars for youth and social workers. Since summer 2009, the association has launched its own workcamps scheme, organizing from 10 to 20 camps every year in Italy. Since 2009, InformaGiovani is leading an informal European network dealing with volunteering as tool for social inclusion, with members and partners in 21 European and non European countries. As said, the network is recognized and supported by the EACEA of the European Commission, under Ka3 of Erasmus Plus programme. The association is registered in the European Register of interest representatives