PROVINCE OF PIACENZA provincia.pc.it

1. PROVINCE OF PIACENZAwww.provincia.pc.it • Anna Pirillo • Department of Social issues

2. The National Government The Regional Governments Local Authorities Italian legal framework on immigration issues • It shares the responsibility among three main subjects:

3. The National Government is in charge of the issues related to: • conditions for access and stay; • asylum seekers (in partnership with Local Authorities for the social assistance and integration issues).

4. The Regional Governments must: • legislate in the matter of social service, assistance policies and integration; • be responsible for the design of strategies & policies for integration, afterwards implemented by local authorities; • build a coherent plan of actions.

5. Local Authorities, in the frames of the regional and national strategies and legislation, have the formal competence and the key role of running the social policies aids and implementing social and integration policies (housing, social service, education, etc).

6. LOCAL LEVEL • The legislative framework, setting out local authorities activities and translating some of common basic principles, is Regional Law for the Social Integration of Third-country Nationals n.5/2004. It is declined in triennial regional programmes of cross-cutting actions (social affairs, health, school, culture, labour) translated at local level in specific projects to carry out.

7. Province of Piacenza administrative structure • It is composed of 48 municipalities. • In order to rationalize social and health policies management, Province is divided in three social-health territorial areas, which assemble different municipalities, called district: Eastern, Western and Piacenza district. • Each district refers to Province for realization of the social plan.

8. Province tasks • In collaboration with municipalities, as local authority, Province exercises the following functions: • gathering of the social-welfare needs through the Informative System and the Provincial Observatory of the social policies; • consultation of the different stakeholders dealing with social issues; • building and approval of the annual plan in favour of the immigrants; • coordination and participation of all the public subjects to the realization of the social intervention and plans.

9. The growth of this presence has been very fast: since 2002, first year Provincial Observatory has collected the first figures, the average annual growth has been of 20% amounting to more than 3,600 foreigners living in the Province per year. Foreigners living in the Province of Piacenza • Province of Piacenza counts 33.134 foreigners on 285.937 inhabitants at the end of 2008, representing 11,6% of total foreigners residents.

10. Nationalities The three principal nationalities are: Albanian (18.2%), Moroccan (12.7%) and Romanian (12.5%). The other significant group is from the former Yugoslavia or Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, which represent 15% of foreign residents in the province. Foreigners living in the Province of Piacenza

11. Gender The distribution at the end of 2008 is: 51.2% men and 48.8% women. Women presence is increased faster in the last year caused by family reunification and employment research in particular connected to caring jobs. Distribution The territorial distribution of foreigners is not uniform but we have found a greater concentration in the lowland towns, in the capital and centres of higher dimension. Foreigners living in the Province of Piacenza • Age • The foreign resident population is a young population, the average age is 30 years and 72% are under 40 years.

12. “The changing city . Third report on the status of foreign immigration in the province of Piacenza “. Monitoring of the immigration condition in the province of Piacenza, published in November 2006; "The female face of migration: Peer Research on immigrant women in the province of Piacenza" whose aim has been to analyse the characteristics and mechanisms of inclusion / exclusion of foreign women in the province of Piacenza. Provincial Observatory • It's a tool which allow us: • to collect data in order to know and deal with migrants issues; • starting from the data to work out different reports for example :

13. Objectives: establishment of a local editorial staff composed of journalists from different nationalities; creation of intercultural communication initiatives , such as a fortnightly newscast, cooperation with the school newspapers of the province of Piacenza, the radio program "Around the World in 95 MHz, the publication of the periodical "Mosaic" by the Intercultural Center; implementation of conferences as "Women, journalism and Migration” held Piacenza in 2007 in the local event Pulcheria dedicated to women creativity”; Intercultural communication • Project for the promotion of intercultural communication in the Province of Piacenza

14. Aim is to promote migrants participation in urban activities in order to give their contributions in territorial planning through a mutual exchange and understanding with local administrators. Creation of local groups composed of migrants coming from associations or not, and Italian citizens working in local authorities, union trades, associations or not. Gathering needs of group participants during periodical meetings; Working out of a report shared during a provincial meeting in which every group, local administrators and all committed in migration issues take part. Report is translated in specific projects. Realization of workshops on emerging topics individuated by participants in local groups ( for example "participation" and "second generation") Democratic participation projects • Territorial Forum for migrants integration

15. Creation of: easy access portal for migrants in order to make them able to know what services territory offer and how to deal with administrative procedures; e-learning courses in order to give migrants tools make them able to integrate in social and labour framework; specific section in the portal to promote training of foreign women in nursing professions giving them tools to access to the training courses; creation of a on-line system which allows exchange of information among stakeholders as police station, prefecture, union trades, Province in order to simplify the procedures concerning migrants. Project for improving labour market access • In order to give tools to access to labour market and make them able to access to public institution Province of Piacenza has carried out the following actions:

16. Objectives: Improving reception and integration among teenagers of first immigration, with lack of language skills in order to be included in education and training systems; consolidation of the network between the provincial higher public and private schools, the provincial authority departments, Provincial School Office and migrants associations. Projects for foreign minors • Implementation of a network of secondary schools in the province and some private entities (migrant associations and individual volunteers mostly former teachers).

17. Objectives: Improving reception for unaccompanied minors; awareness of foreigners families to promote homo-cultural fostering ; conflict management between foreign children from different realities; integration of foreign children among them and among foreigners and Italian ones. Projects for foreign minors • reception and integration of foreign pre-adolescents and adolescents , in particular referring to unaccompanied minors.

18. Objectives promoting active citizenship; promote intercultural and intergenerational dialogue. Results pursued: peer research involving young coming from different context (second generation and young moving from the south of Italy, all of them with difficulties in social inclusion) in order to collect their needs; development of direct participation of young people throughworkshopswhose aim is to make young able to create youth organizations; A final public event will be organized in order to make citizenship aware of the research result and young needs, in particular for local administrators who will acquire tools to better afford and plan youth policy. Projects to promote youth active participation • Project “P2P – New Generations bridge as a social resource in the Province of Piacenza” • It is a project that the Province of Piacenza submitted under the Action ProvincEgiovani.

19. Objectives: promotion of democratic participation of the Youth in their municipalities favouring the dialogue between themselves and their local authorities. Activites carried out: creation of a network of 5 organizations active in participative democracy; youth exchanges of 3 young members (native and not) for each organization leaded in order to learn about the different democratic participation initiatives; Restitution of best practices learnt by youngsters to local public administrators; Dissemination of the results through Youth European networks and to the general public. Website : www.connect-pd.eu Projects to promote youth active participation • Project “Connect-PD” submitted in Youth in Action Programme Year 2008.

20. Aims: Support to migrants to create and consolidate associations. Activities carried out: Individual training actions addressed to migrants interesting to create a new association; consolidation of the foreign associations already set up. Projects to promote and strengthenmigrants associations • Support to migrants associations • in collaboration with the Municipalities of the social-health districts

21. Priorieties for next plan • Training courses addressed to operators dealing with migrants, in particular in specific situation as access of migrants to health system; • Strengthening social and health integration policies to cope with specific migrants situations (for example giving more information to women in order to increase their knowledge of the services offered); • Enhancing Italian courses; • Improving local reception and information system of asylum seekers at local level; • Strengthening of a regional anti-discrimination system.

22. Local Group composition • Local administrators; • Trade unions delegates; • Migrants association delegates; • Health system delegates; • Intercultural mediators; • Employers associations delegates; • Third sector delegates.

23. Anna Pirillo Department of Social Policies Anna.pirillo@provincia.pc.it THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION