Community center, final evaluation of the social inclusion project

Title Community Center for social inclusion

Location Milano, Arezzo, Catania

Duration October 2019

Head of project Diaconia Valdese

Partner Oxfam Italia, Associazione A pieno titolo Onlus

Funding Fondo di Beneficenza Intesa San Paolo

Context

“Community Center: spazi per ri-conoscersi” represents a new way of interpreting “assistance”: indeed, it is a model where assistance means means meeting, confrontation, knowledge and self-knowledge.

This project aims at increasing the social inclusion and improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable part of the population, both Italians and migrants. Main activities and services offered in the Community Centers in the cities of Milan, Arezzo and Catania include the orientation to services, job orientation, recognition of qualification, legal support and networking and socialization events.

Thus, the project acts on all the causes that lead to isolation, in order to avoid the chronicization of social disadvantaged situations. Actions focus on increasing the access to services and on changing the perception of the realities in which they live in.

At the same time, the project aims at creating networks between local realities in order to achieve a wide collaboration in the social assistance to the most fragile individuals.

General Objective

The final evaluation aims at assessing the results achieved and the impact of the project at the end of the 12 months of implementation.

Our contribution

ARCO researchers carried out a field mission in October 2019 during which they visited the Community Centers of the areas of intervention in Arezzo, Milan and Catania. During the mission, they met with the coordinators, project operators and involved a sample of beneficiaries.

Researchers designed a participatory and qualitative methodology, combined with a desk analysis of the project documents and quantitative analysis of the data collected through the questionnaires administered during the project activities by the operators. Therefore, the information obtained from the qualitative analysis were triangulated with desk analysis and quantitative data, to provide an extensive analysis of the results achieved by the project.

The evaluation methodology designed by the ARCO Researchers allowed the final evaluation to be inserted in continuity with the monitoring itself, and involved the project managers and referents firsthand.

Read more on our M&E and Impact Evaluation Unit