ESC: Building Communities, Shaping Minds: Youth Volunteering with Teenagers and Young Adults in Educational and Social Field

The Municipality of Padua is a territorial public body located in the Veneto Region; the population covered is 211,316 inhabitants, of which 16.83% are foreigners (data as of 31/12/2019). The average age of the population is 47.06 years, and citizens aged between 15 and 35 years are 44,596, just under a fifth of the entire resident population. A relevant data is represented by the average age of the population that from Padua decides to migrate abroad: 31 years. Who, instead, reaches Padua has an average age of 37.8 years. The city also hosts one of the oldest universities in the world, which has about 60,000 students. A significant critical aspect of the territorial context is highlighted by the data concerning the employment of young people aged between 18 and 29 years in the Province of Padua. In particular, 48.4% of males and 34.9% of females are employed, while the unemployed are 6.7% of males and 19.8% of females (ISTAT 2019). In addition, it should be noted that in the city of Padua alone there were 13,032 memberships in the Youth Guarantee program, dedicated to NEETs in the region (data as of 18/05/2020). The city of Padua has been named European Capital of Volunteering 2020: the Municipality is the main promoter of the initiatives related to this title together with CSV Padova (Centro Servizi Volontariato) and a strong network of local and national partners. The Municipality of Padua has an office entirely dedicated to the promotion and implementation of services and activities for the population aged between 15 and 35 years, the Progetto Giovani office. Since 1987, the main objective of this office is to inform and offer advice in different areas of interest to young people, guiding and supporting them in their professional, cultural and civic training. The target population of Progetto Giovani activities is not only residents, but also upper secondary school students from the urban belt municipalities and university students from the rest of the region, other regions of Italy or foreign countries. The office is divided into different areas of competence: - Informagiovani: it intervenes in the specific field of direct information to the public, especially with regard to work, post- and extra-school training and international mobility, offering informative desks and organizing public meetings for in-depth study; - Spazio Europa: manages international youth mobility projects funded by the European Union, in particular within the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes, for which Progetto Giovani is accredited both as Supporting and Coordinating Organisation, and offers free advice on mobility programmes in Europe to both young people and interested bodies; - Creatività it works to promote and stimulate professional growth processes for young artists, creatives and cultural operators who work with contemporary languages in the fields of arts and culture and who have chosen these fields for the development of their professional careers; - Animazione: it is the area dedicated to the aggregative, cultural and social interests of young people, providing the support and advice necessary for the realization of ideas and projects to groups, individuals and associations; it also manages the Punto Giovani PG Toselli 3.0, a detached aggregative center of Progetto Giovani. - Schools: it realizes and promotes a wide educational offer addressed to students of secondary schools in the city, collaborating in the educational activity already foreseen by the curricular projects of the schools.