After many years of international volunteering programs in NPH Houses, we decided to offer the possibility to participate in projects helping children and their families also in Italy. Such projects will be linked to similar important programs in which the Foundation Francesca Rava is involved.
The Francesca Rava Foundation- NPH Italia Onlus Volunteering Camp in Italy was organized in Genova in synergy with the project, coordinated by the Fundation, “La barchetta rossa e la zebra” (literally “the little red boat and the zebra”). This project aims to fight the lack of education and to facilitate parents-children interactions in the Marassi and Pontedecimo penitentiary.
The project consisted of two intense days during which 7 volunteers of the Foundation closely interacted with the life of the Marassi penitentiary, an only male institute. Welcomed and accompanied by the penitentiary staff, they visited the inside and the outside spaces of the penitentiary in which the detainees work and are reeducated (rooms, labs, bakeries, carpentries and the Arca theatre).
The project included illuminating testimonies from police officers who, by answering the numerous questions of the volunteers, helped shed light on the complex and multi-faceted prison life.
The volunteers helped paint three big rooms of the penitentiary used by the to welcome the convicts’ families. This effort was lived with great dedication as it reflects the aim of the project “La barchetta rossa e la zebra”, which has the purpose of re-qualifying some of the penitentiary’s rooms to facilitate interactions between convicted parents and their children by making the rooms in which the children wait to meet their parents more children friendly.
After that, The Francesca Rava Foundation Camp continues in the fascinating streets of Genova. Here the volunteers visit solidary workshops, where rehabilitation projects are developed for both male and female convicts of the penitentiaries.
The first stop is the Etta Rapallo shop, where the “Sc’Art!” association presented the “Creazioni al Fresco/Rici-Bag” workshop. This is a series of creative labs for the women in the Pontedecimo penitentiary in order to encourage a different way to live their time in the penitentiary.
The second stop is the solidary workshop by O’PRESS, a project of jail economy that develops the collection “Canzoni Oltre le Sbarre”, a line of ethic T-shirts created by detainees in the serigraphy labs of the high security V section of the Massari penitentiary.
The Francesca Rava Foundation thanks both the EcoEridania group for their hospitality and the Direction of the Marassi penitentiary of Genova for this intense life experience.
