Social Projects in Italy

Portofranco Milano ODV supports the welfare of young people in Italy

The organization offers educational and psychological support to young people with study difficulties to prevent them from dropping out of school.

Educational problems are often the tip of the iceberg of other more serious and deeper problems.

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Current Project

Portofranco is a study support center for high school students. More than 1400 students are enrolled each school year, 300 of whom are from abroad. Thanks to the participation of more than 300 volunteers, including active and retired teachers, professionals and university students, Portofranco offers free daily homework assistance and help to restore educational skills and habits: more than 48,000 hours of training for young people each year, of which more than 17,000 are personalized classes.

Many of the young people who go to Portofranco rediscover an interest in studying and regain the ability to commit themselves to school. 

Based in Milan, where it was founded in 2000, Portofranco has become a benchmark in the prevention of early school dropout, as well as the integration between Italians and first and second/third generation immigrants. A place of hope and coexistence that received the 2019 Ambrogino d’Oro Certificate of Civic Merit. 

The project that Fundación MAPFRE is collaborating with is called “Let’s face the need“. This is an innovative way of reaching out to young people through a proven method developed in the Netherlands and originally designed for the business world. This project supports young people and their families in both purely educational aspects and others related to their daily lives: nutrition, communication, motivation, and so on.

To this end, “Let’s face the need” is divided into 4 areas: 

  1. Educational tutoring: by means of motivational work, identifying and reinforcing the main educational skills of young people who are having problems in their studies, restoring their self-esteem and strengthening their relationship with their peers.
  2. Motivation: using highly innovative tools, interventions are carried out with groups of 10 students to identify their study difficulties and enhance their strengths.
  3. Family support: support for groups of 18 families related to food and health education.
  4. Talk to me: this program involves listening activities carried out by psychologists specialized in dealing with difficulties faced by children and young people.