Associazione Elios

Elios is a youth organization based in Acireale, founded in 2007 by some friends who decided to spend their passions in an organization active in the field of sport, volunteering, social and cultural promotion, youth participation, active citizenship and university life. Elios works mainly with young people between 15 and 30, in some cases, however, the activities are carried out through synergy with primary schools and the involvement of adults and/or children. Since 2007 Elios has been organising one of the most important sport events in the area of Catania, the SUN&SPORT, which every summer involves around 400 young people taking part in sports tournaments. Every year, SUN&SPORT promotes a main topic that adapts to the interests of young people: in the last years the main topic related to the event has been "AGAINST NEW ADDICTIONS", the fight against many addictions (such as alcohol, drugs, games, etc..). The Board of Elios decided to adopt this topic in order to make young people aware of the problem of new addictions, in particular through SUN&SPORT, but also through social media, conferences, youth meetings, local projects. Since 2011 Elios has also been involved in European programmes (Youth in Action, Erasmus+, Europe for Citizens, etc.) and thanks to them has obtained funding for several projects focusing on youth participation, active citizenship, youth unemployment, safe use of new technologies and the Internet for young people, protection of women, education to human rights, etc.. In the frame of Erasmus+ programme, Elios developed a training course in November 2015 in the city of Acitrezza: the project saw 33 participants from 11 different European countries discuss the issues of online safety for young people, new addictions and risks related to the use of new technologies and new forms of communication. In 2019, even in the frame of Erasmus+, Elios developed two youth exchanges about human rights education and anti-discrimination. Also under Erasmus+, Elios members managed various youth exchanges in the fields of social promotion, human rights education, online journalism and information, environment and recycling, use of new technologies, etc. Since 2015, Elios has also been accredited for the National Civil Service and each year has 4 young volunteers working in the offices and following the activities of the organization focused on the above issues. Elios has also been working for about two years with a European network, DYPALL [Developing Youth Participation At Local Level], which includes, at the same time, civil society organisations and municipalities from different European countries; this network is mainly focused on the participation of young people at local and European level. Elios, in June 2019, was the promoter of the first Human Library (living library) organized in the area of Catania; in order to promote Human Rights Education, carried out by the Association in recent years, it was possible to organize the first event to take action against discrimination, prejudice and stereotypes in the Catania area. Since 2019 Elios has obtained the Quality Label (n. 2019-1-IT03-ESC52- 017768) as hosting and coordinating organisation in the frame of European Solidarity Corps (ESC) program and it will allow to the organisation to host and coordinate projects involving up to 6 volunteers in the city of Acireale and surroundings with the active cooperation of local Municipalities.