Amici di Cometa pursues common interest and solidarity. It promotes activities in the social and health care sectors for the development of the Cometa Network and channels. Activities deal with minors , encouraging their development and education.
Amici di Cometa promotes initiatives, such as events and campaigns, aiming at raising funds and sustaining projects in educational sector and foster families care promoted by the entities of Cometa network. Grants will be used for events aiming at sustaining fund-raising activities and networking. Grants will also contribute to yearly bursaries for daily foster children and/ or for pupils of the vocational training school Oliver Twist during their internship; major attention will be paid to students with disabilities and dropout kids.
COMETA'S MISSION
To promote young people's harmonious growth and development ;
To encourage the expression of each individual talent and capacity through study, knowledge and experience;
To offer support of a young person's academic growth and to prevent school dropout;
To foster young people's development through the acquisition of specific competencies, supported by workshops and work experiences to initiate them in their chosen trade.
COMETA'S ACTIVITIES
Daily and residential fostering services , emergency shelter;
Support centre for students and orientation services;
Legal, counselling and family reconciliation services;
Vocational development and support to prevent high levels of school dropout;
Sport and summer activities;
Advice for job security;
Training courses for adults in employment, out of work and unemployed.
Cometa Research Center
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES FOR MINORS
Education gives a meaning to life, therefore it is not a mere word, but it is an experience. It represents the communication of oneself, of our own way of relating to reality. Pier Paolo Pasolini argued that "If someone has educated you, he or she has educated you with his or her whole being". The problem of education involves first and foremost adults, because from them depends whether young people find their way to the future. Only if adults engage with the reality in its totality, they have the chance to communicate a meaning. A journey through life is not a collection of speeches and words, but a life that communicates with adequate reasonings.Cometa's experience relies on the principle that fostering is to educate, with particular attention to children temporarily removed from their families.
FOSTER CARE
Children removed from their family of origin by an order of the Juvenile Court, may be fostered within the Cometa Association's network of families: a group of families who, over time, have given their availability to receive children in their own homes. For each child who is fostered, an agreement is made with the Social Services and an individual development plan defined. A specialist team within Cometa Association supervises the progress over time of the individual plans, always in cooperation with the Social Services.
EMERGENCY SERVICE
The Association's network of families can give immediate reception to children and babies who are awaiting adoption. This can also happen in cases of particular urgency which are referred by the judicial authorities or the social services.Regardless of the duration of the fostering experience, a stable family environment is critical: it allows the child to experience a loving relationship that will form the basis for the future development of his or her personality
DAY FOSTER CARE
The Cometa Association offers practical help to families with children and to single-parent households. In accordance with the Social Services, immediately after school, these children are welcomed in Cometa, where they find the warmth of a home and an educational environment where they can grow, thanks to the presence of both the families and the professional educators. Children who spend the day at Cometa, are helped with their homework and go back home after dinner. In this way the Association operates in terms of prevention, often avoiding the removal of children from their natural families.
LEADING TO ADOPTION
Babies 0 to 24 months old, can be accepted in Cometa Association's network of families, when waiting for the Juvenile Court to certify the state of abandonment of the child.Once the Court declares the state of adoptability of the child and after the adoptive family is selected, the Association, in cooperation with the Social Services and with the support of the educational staff, leads to the gradual integration of the child in the new familiar context.
SERVICES TO THE FAMILIES
Cometa is a network of families committed to foster, educate and develop children and young people and to support their families.The Cometa Association organizes monthly meetings to promote fostering as well as courses to prepare to the fostering experience supported by professionals (psychologist, psychotherapist, legal counsel, social services operator, educator) and by the testimonials of existing foster families. The Association supports the foster families during the whole time the children are in their care and, wherever possible, they support also the original families of the foster children with the objective of reintegrating them. All of this is achieved in synergy with the Social Services.
THE SCHOOL OF TOMORROW. Cometa Formazione, through the Oliver Twist School, offers:
Vocational training courses for young people of compulsory school age and customized technical training to prepare them to enter the job market;
Professional training courses for those who, although they have qualified and are in possession of a school leaver certificate, have difficulty in finding a job.Cometa Formazione is a social cooperative, operating in the field of professional training and job hunting. It is a social entity that is part of the Cometa Group, active in Como since 1986, a natural evolution of their fostering experience.Cometa Formazione's commitment has inspired the creation of the Contrada degli Artigiani (Craftsmen's District), a cooperative where the children come in contact with expert artisans who teach them their crafts, still considered a true form of art. The cooperative currently accommodate four school-workshops teaching carpentry, home furnishing, restoration and design, designed to train and prepare the young people to the job market.
SPORTS ASSOCIATION
Cometa Sports Association is a spin off of Cometa Association, an organization born in 1987 and committed to welcome and educate children and young people and to support their families. The Sports Association started operating in 2002, based on the idea that sport is a functional instrument of people's education and growth.Sport activities are a means of bringing out and developing each child's potential. This will allow him to be aware of his own dignity and fully experience the extraordinary adventure of building his own personality. Physical activity is a powerful way to express oneself and sport, especially team sports, encourages the creation and growth of adults' and young people's friendly relationships. Following this main vision, the Association also carries out initiatives destined to respond to the needs of minors who live in difficult family situations by proposing individual or group educational journeys through physical activity. Qualified trainers follow the children in these personalized educational and technical journeys.
