“L’Isola del Tesoro” and “Estatebambini”

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:06:00 +0000
Num. 35

Family Centres: avant-garde experiences in Ferrara

In the summer of 1997, after several years devoted to the restoration of the city's nineteen- thirties monumental aqueduct, the Piazza xxiv Maggio centre opened as the new headquarters of two municipal services: the Family Centre and the Parent and Children Centre "L'Isola del Tesoro", an avant-garde experience which the city of Ferrara can certainly be proud of.

The services and activities that are located inside have become one of the most interesting and outstanding experiments on the regional landscape, allowing a large number of families from Ferrara to have daily access to information, services and parenting support.

In addition, as from September 1997, every year for ten days in late summer, the whole square and the rooms of the former waterworks become a great community meeting place for children and adults: the ESTATEBAMBINI festival.

Over the years ESTATEBAMBINI has become a true community occasion for children and adults of all ages, a magical place and a platform for many events: theatre, workshops, meetings and encounters of all kinds.

This unique framework came to life in the summer of 2010 with a new and purposeful experience, which involved hundreds of children and families and allowed them to switch from the role of spectator to that of the actors in a magnificent collective theatrical action.

"Un Canto per Monte Sole", is about the massacre of the children of Marzabotto by the Nazis in September, 1944. In 2011 we saw "Madres in cammino" based on the courageous "Madres de Plaza de Mayo" but which also addressed the "motherhood from a distance" issue of carers from abroad, and showed once more how the children and the entire local community can contribute in a totally original and creative way to the growth of civil consciousness.