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<h1>A new YouthBank is born!</h1>
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<p class="summary" style="color: #000;">30 students from different schools and universities in Como, Italy, started working on the YouthBank project in October 2014 when Fondazione Comasca, the non-profit organisation that supported the project, united them.</p>
<p class="byline">YouthBank Como (Italy)</p>
<p><em>Written by Francesca Cafasso, Margherita Broggio, Tobia Romano and Emily Turilli all first-year students at the University in Como’s Insubria University and students of the College of merit Scuola di Como, and by Isacco Gavazzi, 17 years old, student at Como’s Scientific Lyceum Paolo Giovio.</em></p><p><img src="/uploads/551d99ca1ba12.jpg"></p><p>After attending the first meeting, when our leaders Bernardino, Giorgia and Monica explained the goals of the YouthBank project, we immediately showed great enthusiasm because for the first time we saw the opportunity to be the real protagonists in changing our community and we took the opportunity right away!</p><p>This was the first time that the YouthBank project had been launched in Como, so we didn’t have any previous examples; that’s why we were divided into two groups that organised weekly meetings to brainstorm about what to include in the first announcement of our project. Finally we came up with the first indications: €150.000 is available to finance possible projects and people who want to apply must be between 14 and 25 years old. </p><p>So we asked everyone with an interest in doing something useful for our community to communicate their idea of a possible project, name, and email address by filling in a form on the designated website that we created for the occasion.</p><p>We had to make a special effort to communicate what we were doing to the widest public possible, mainly because it was something completely new. Our efforts included holding press conferences, interviews with local radio and TV stations, the creation of Facebook and Twitter accounts, good old distribution of flyers and just talking to our relatives, friends, schoolmates, team mates and anyone who could possibly help us, encouraging them to spread the word. </p><p>Since we dedicated a good amount of time to this purpose, we were hoping for a big turn out. We began to check our Facebook page almost daily to see how many likes we had gained, as we regarded it as a signal of increased interest. The number kept growing, and so was the number of people who filled the applications forms. Considering that this was our first year, we were relieved to see that quite a few people, and not only young people, had shown interest in our Youth Bank. We collected around 60 projects and a lot more young people wanted to take part in our activities even if their projects weren’t ready at the time. </p><p>As we had expected most of these people, being high school students, weren’t familiar with the organization of a project. That’s why we have planned a course to address their needs, which has just ended. The course consisted of five lessons covering different subjects, such as financial planning, communication of socially committed projects, fundraising and self-evaluation, all of which needed in order to create well-structured projects. We even filmed all these meetings to make the course available to those who couldn’t attend. </p><p>Meanwhile, as part of the committee responsible for selecting projects, our next goal was to draw up the public announcement. Once again, we were helped by adults in the process as it was something completely new to us, but they left all the decisions about the criteria of selection in our hands, something that young people in our country hardly ever have the chance to experience.</p><p>As a result of these first few months of activity, we feel as YouthBank Como has already done a lot for the community. It certainly did for us, as it gave us the opportunity to challenge ourselves (even just taking part in a press conference is something we never thought we would be able to do!), to work as a team, to gain experience and to learn and give other people the chance to learn valuable skills for their future.</p><p>Now that the announcement has just been released, all that is left to do is to wait and hope for another positive response from our local youth!</p><p><img src="/uploads/551bc460ddb95.jpg" style="width: 253px;"> <img src="http://beacon.by/uploads/551d99ff71869.jpg" style="width: 178px;"></p><h4><strong>Interview with YouthBank Como</strong></h4><p><u>Describe your local YouthBank in 5 words</u></p><p>A chance to be protagonists.</p><p><u>How did you first hear of YouthBank?</u></p><p>Some of us as students of ‘Scuola di Como’, the College of merit for university students in Como, received an email form the headteacher to let them know about this opportunity. Others, as high school students, were informed of this opportunity while at school. And we all decided to attend the first meeting to see what it was about.</p><p><u>What was your motivation for joining YouthBank?</u></p><p>We joined YouthBank for several reasons. But the most important reason is being able to do something to solve the problem of young people dropping out of school in our province, where a quite high percentage of students (precisely 22%) decide to leave school before graduating. Also, as some of us are already university students we were interested in working on a real project. Anyway, joining the YouthBank project is a great opportunity to learn something and to develop new skills that could be useful in the future.</p><p><u>Describe the context of your YouthBank/YouthBank network: what did you see happening in your community, culture, social context etc. How significant to you is the human factor your YouthBank is addressing?</u></p><p>The YouthBank Como projects’ main focus right now is contrasting the scholastic dispersion. Unluckily in Italy there is not up-to-date data related to this. But an approximate statistic shows that around 13% of teenagers in Italy leave school before graduation. In our province, Como, this indicator is higher at around 17%.</p><p>Due to these facts we have now two main goals: change this negative trend and collect detailed and clear data about our project's impact. We believe that being involved in decisions concerning people of our own age can create a positive mechanism in which the youth is more and more at the centre of society. We don't physically carry people to school, but we can show them a good direction and make them active members of their community.</p><p><u>How do you see your local YouthBank developing in the future?</u></p><p>YouthBank is an innovative project. For the first time the younger generations have the power to decide what to built in their community. That’s great because only young people can understand which are their needs at the moment. That’s why we really hope that this initiative will show a great response and that it will be renewed into the next years.</p>
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