Kala Onlus

Kala Onlus is a Non-Profit Organization of Social Utility (ONLUS), mainly active within the Albergheria/Ballarò district in Palermo. Since its foundation in 2010, it has helped over 500 children and as many families in economic disadvantage, providing them with pedagogical, logistical and financial support, through services dedicated to infancy and parents, creating an educating community alongside children and their families. Kala Onlus was founded in 2010 from the idea of a group of educators and social workers engaged for several years in working with children, in particular with those of foreign origin. The Association’s main characteristic is the social training and educational vocation of the operators involved, particularly attentive to the use of intercultural pedagogy and to the issues related to reception, the enhancement of differences, integration and social inclusion. School dropouts, the precariousness of living and working conditions, the lack of socialization spaces for both local and foreign children and adults represent specific distress in the neighbourhoods. The desire to improve this difficult situation stems from the choice of the name “Kala”, which evokes the mission of the non-profit organization: in the book “Tarzan of the apes” by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kala is the gorilla mother who finds the little man, brings it and welcomes it into its world with love and respecting its peculiarities. The name of the Association, therefore, is the bearer of a clear and precise message, imbued with values such as peace, solidarity, social justice, protection of human and civil rights. The aim of the association is to promote the integration of foreign communities within the city and to combat all forms of discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, as well as on cultural, religious or gender-related factors and to sexual orientation. For this reason, Kala Onlus, with a determined attitude to work with the local community, is committed to offering services aimed at welcoming, supporting and caring for children in the 0-6 age bracket, having been born into deprived families and/or immigrant families in conditions of social fragility. Thanks to the donations and the work of assistants, nannies, psychologists, trainees and specialized volunteers, Kala Onlus has expanded its catchment area, intervening in other socio-psychoeducational areas, with projects on parenting support, social inclusion, exchanges and cultural comparisons (organization of exhibitions, laboratories, information and reception desks, food counters, etc.). Moreover, in Piazza dell’Origlione, in the heart of Ballarò, in the premises made available by the Comprehensive Institute Nuccio Plesso Verga, Kala Onlus has founded “Il Giardino di Madre Teresa“, an educational space, open and welcoming place for children from local families and migrants with serious economic difficulties and often also suffering from problems related to integration.