ÉFA – Équipe di Formatori Associati (Associated Trainers Team)

ÉFA – Équipe di Formatori Associati is an association between professionals that puts together the expertise of twenty years of experience of its founders, Mario Bozzo Costa and Francesco Ferrari, and the joint work of psychologists, educators and other expert collaborators in the fields of consulting, training, European planning and research, largely focusing on Active Citizenship and the Third Sector, with particular attention to the target of volunteers and young people. Considering the field of education, EFA has acquired and can promote:

• In general, the "sensitivity", in-depth knowledge of the systems of non-formal education in Italy and in Europe; the teaching skills centred on learning and those methodological, based on the commitment in planning and training for young people in formal and informal educational settings.
• In particular, the twenty-five years’ experience in the training of young people and workers of Civic Service (formerly part of the Italian law 772/72 and 230/98 besides the 64/01), which is an exceptional training context for young people, a non-formal rite of passage to adulthood, from studies to employment, to adult, personal, social and civil commitment. EFA can, in fact, leverage a complete knowledge of the system as a consultant of the National Office of the Civic Service (UNSC) and some of the major regions (Liguria, Piedmont, Sicily, Campania and prov. Trento).

In the past 7 years, in Italy, the partners and associates of EFA have developed and conducted:

• Consulting and training courses for operators of voluntary associations, as consultants of some Italian Service Centres to Volunteerism, also for the management of projects of European Voluntary Service
• ESF funded projects on social cooperation, skills assessment, job orientation and safety at work, involving more than 40 schools and over 1,000 students and 200 higher education
• Courses in schools on gender identity, on the fight against homophobia, as consultants for Arcigay
• Projects of skills development and training activities for workers and volunteers of the main centre against gender violence in Genoa, as well as for social and health workers, police officers, journalists and lawyers.

Since 2003 EFA has been involved in European programs for youth and non-formal education in general, by previous Youth in Action and Grundtvig, to Erasmus +, particularly with expertise in the design and coordination of the European Voluntary Service and planning projects for social and cultural companies. Particularly relevant to reality of penitentiary institutions was the Grundtvig project “Prisoners On Stage – POST” which was a European exchange between theatrical enterprises active in penitentiary institutions from Italy, France, Romania and Germany. “POST” (2012-2013) tackled the relationship between communities and their prisons. All of the project partners had an experiences on social and community theatre and aimed to implement new models of intervention, based upon experimentation. The project, in particular, aimed to transfer to local contexts a model based upon a direct dialogue between inmates, students and their families through the universal language of theatre. Thanks to its consultants in Bruxelles, ÉFA have developed the expertise to create and manage international networks for both the acknowledgment and dissemination of results.