The Eureka! project began with educational and active participation courses in community life aimed at girls and boys from the Comprehensive Institutes of Milan and surrounding municipalities. Promoted by Mani Tese, Spazio Pensiero and Bipart, Eureka! aims to combat school dropout and prevent the causes of abandonment by encouraging the protagonism of young pre-adolescents and strengthening their citizenship skills. Eureka! is a project supported by the Department for Family Policies at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

Girls and boys' ideas transform school

 “The Eureka! Project is part of a context of strong commitment on the part of Hands Outstretched in the fight against educational poverty. Educational poverty represents one of the most serious and complex social challenges of our time and we are convinced that only a preventive and integrated approach can contribute to truly changing things" states Elisa Lenhard, Global Citizenship Education and Advocacy Representative of Mani Tese.

"We believe in an intervention model that is not limited to responding to immediate needs, but that aims to build a solid and lasting support system, promoting a sense of belonging and encouraging the values ​​of active citizenship among boys and girls, through responsible and conscious participation. In a period like the current one, in which the Government's decision not to renew the Fund for the fight against educational poverty has created a further vacuum of resources, our work takes on an even more important value. The Fund represented a concrete attempt to address one of the most serious problems of our country. According to official data from ISTAT, they are 1,29 million minors living in absolute poverty, an alarming fact that highlights the urgency of structured interventions. Educational poverty is closely linked to this phenomenon and risks creating a vicious circle that compromises the future of entire generations”.

La school dropout, one of the most dramatic aspects of educational poverty, is a phenomenon that devastatingly affects the lives of many young people, preventing them from accessing the opportunities that a good education could offer. For this reason, the Eureka! Project is not limited to isolated interventions on the individual student, but is committed to strengthening the link between young people and their schools and between schools and local communities, with the aim of creating an integrated support system. In this way, the school can become a place of active participation, where boys and girls can feel protagonists and concretely commit to improving their social and environmental context. Active citizenship is not an abstract concept, it is the concrete actions that transform our communities!”.

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