Day care centres in Poznań offer mostly typical assistance – childcare, educational and socio-therapeutic programmes and activities, where children are passive recipients of services. The Association’s experiences show that this is not enough if we want children at risk to stop being passive and stop following helplessness learned in their families. One of the most effective forms of developing socially pro-active skills is volunteer work – it encourages open-minded attitude, commitment and undertaking initiatives addressed to others. This was shown in research and studies :“Code of Volunteering Key Values”, the Unit for Social Innovation and Research “Shipyard”, 2011; experiences of numerous organizations and institutions (including the Foundation for Children Cry, Katowice Town Hall, Regional Volunteer Centre and Municipality Employment Office in Gdańsk, Association of the Western Institute, Caritas; lessons learned from implementing volunteer projects, e.g. “Volunteering – join us!”, “Personal, professional and social activation of the unemployed who are at risk of marginalization”, “Gdańsk programme of volunteering as professional activation”). There are dozens of community day-care centres and socio-therapeutic centres in Poznań, but none of them offers activities for young people over 15 who are also vulnerable to negative consequences of domestic violence and alcohol abuse. Adolescence encourages experimentation with substances, violence and multiplying failures of the older generation.
The aim of the project was to counteract social exclusion and marginalization of 30 children and young people in Poznań whose parents have problems with their upbringing.
The project implementation resulted in minimizing the risk of social exclusion of the 30 participants thanks to their involvement in developing and implementing community projects. 18 volunteer activities were organized for the local communities and neighbourhood. Training on finances was conducted and individual consulting on ICT was delivered. 4 groups had 198 hours of socio-therapy and 121 hours were assigned for individual socio-therapy.
The beneficiaries of the project implementation were young people over 15 from Poznań exposed to the risk of marginalization.