The mission of CEIPES is to foster and support the sustainable development of local
communities and individuals’ empowerment through education and training, human rights and international cooperation.

OBJECTIVES:
1. To promote education and development of all people at any age as a tool to foster individual and collective growth.
2. To fight all forms of discrimination with the aim of contributing to community development and social inclusion.
3. To encourage intercultural dialogue with the objective of promoting understanding and respect between individuals from different cultures, creating the awareness of the intercultural enrichment achieved through the sharing of values, traditions and different modus vivendi.
4. To promote peace, nonviolence and human rights as the only way to reach a world of equality and solidarity in which all human beings enjoy their fundamental rights.
5. To conduct International cooperation projects respecting equal opportunities and the principle of self-determination of people.

CEIPES works in 6 main areas: human rights, peace and nonviolence, active participation, anti-discrimination, cultural diversity and vocational training. In all
these fields of action CEIPEs works together with youth and adults creating for/with them education and training opportunities.

• Human Rights Area: Right now this department is very engaged in a international cooperation project named “Holidays in Peace” (Vacanze in Pace, VIP) that aims to bring 5 to 10 children to Italy from Occidental Sahara that live in Algerian refugee camps. Through this 2 month programme, children will benefit from different
  holidays, staying with Italian families, going to the sea and also receiving medical care.
• We also have in preparation a long term project aimed to mainstream human rights in voluntary work: “Volunteer for Human Rights”. This project is foreseen as a training course for volunteers from all over Europe that will in a second stage fulfil volunteering activities and implement their learning achievements. The project also
  foresees the creation of a volunteering platform and a celebration at European level of the International Day of Volunteering on the 5^th of December.
• Anti-Discrimination Area: This department is very active these days organising the workshop “Women & Work” (funded with support from the LLP Programme of the European Commission) in which 22 women will take part from European countries working together to build competences that will better prepare them for integration in the labour market.
• We also have an awareness raising campaign at local level aimed to make citizens that drive cars respectful of pedestrians and especially those with motor disabilities. With this campaign we hope to facilitate the movement of people using wheel chaisr or that have difficulties in walking.
• Cultural Diversity Area: In this department we have various projects aimed at encouraging intercultural dialogue and furnishing young people and adults with competences to become real citizens of multicultural societies. One of these projects is called “Meltinglab” (funded with the support from the European Social Fund of
  the European Commission) and takes place in 2 local schools. The project aims to promote equal opportunities among students from different cultural backgrounds through intercultural education.
• Another project is “Virtual and intercultural dialogue” (funded with support from the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe) that is coordinated by UNOY Peacebuilders and aims to promote active participation of young people in intercultural dialogue through research, advocacy and policy meetings.
• Vocational Training Area: Through the activities in this department we encourage youth to build their competences for integration in the labour market, as well as their intercultural competences. This year we will host more than 200 young people from Turkey and Portugal doing professional placements in various fields such as tourism, social work, health and hygiene. These projects are funded through the LLP Programme from the European Commission, in the Leonardo da Vinci sector.
• Peace and Nonviolence Area: We believe peace is a common concern all over the world and we struggle to mainstream peace education in various fields of action, especially school and teacher training. We have one research project (Comenius Regio funded with support from the LLP Programme of the European Commission) aimed to
  improve in-service training of teachers in Sicily and Ankara. If everything will be as expected we will also have approved a 2 year project aimed at introducing non-formal and peace education methods and approaches to the formal school system through teacher training and pilot sessions with pupils.
• Active Participation Area: Right now we are preparing a workshop with young people aimed to furnish them with tools for active participation and social change using ICT. The workshop is called “Developing youth participation and democratic citizenship
  through ICT” (funded with the support from the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe) and will gather 25 young people from all over Europe for 6 days in Palermo.
• At the same time we are preparing a volunteering project with senior citizens, which involves 12 volunteers from Portugal and Italy that will spend periods of 3 weeks in each others’ countries doing voluntary service in the local community. This project
  is entitled “4ever active” and is funded with support from the LLP Programme of the European Commission.

• Hosting of young practitioners in the framework of Leonardo da Vinci mobility projects (practices on ICT and other working fields; CEIPES acts as an intermediary organisation that facilitates the project implementation of the project at local level)
  (April-September 2011)
• Women & work: Improve your skills (workshop with women aimed to improve their competences necessary to find a job) (2-9 May 2011)
• Job shadowing in Argentina in the framework of the project Learning by seeing, Seeing by doing! (aimed to capacity building and policy meetings) (22-31 May 2011)
• Developing youth participation and democratic citizenship through ICT (workshop with young people aimed to build competences relevant for web activism) (21-28 June 2011)