Redion is 17 years old and arrives alone in Italy from Albania in search of a better future for himself and his family. As soon as he arrives, he immediately gets busy: he studies Italian and goes back to school, obtaining his Middle School Certificate.
The Work Is Progress staff gets in touch with him as part of an intervention carried out together with AFOL-Città Metropolitana and Fondazione Aliante aimed at providing unaccompanied foreign minors with orientation and training and work opportunities.
When our operators meet him, in the community where he lives together with other adolescents of various ages and nationalities, Redion has very clear ideas, and a desire: to work in the catering industry. Our staff immediately took action to look for possibilities for him in this sector and got in touch with Panino Giusto, that at the time was working in collaboration with Generation Italy, a foundation offering vocational training and a job placement project aimed at young people aged between 18 and 29. In September, he meets the project leaders and passes the selection process. When he turns 18, he starts the “Food and Beverage – Room attendant” course: 4 weeks of theoretical and practical training to develop technical and behavioural skills suitable for working in this field. At the end of the training course, having been noticed by the trainers, including Panino Giusto managers, he is selected by the company.
His interview is a success and he is placed with a training apprenticeship – which will later be transformed into an apprenticeship contract – in one of their shops and he is assisted, trained and followed with passion and dedication by Store Manager Nadia Ghandi.
His willpower and the targeted support of our staff enabled him to be valued by the company and his colleagues and to overcome the inexperience of his young age.
To find out more about our work with unaccompanied foreign minors, please see the Building The Future (COSTRUIRE FUTURO) – Pathways to Inclusion for Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (MSNA) project sheet.
