The complexity of the modern world is clear for everyone, it often displaces us, catches us unprepared and puts us in front of topics or scenarios that we don’t know how to deal with. Issues such as discrimination, marginalization, cyberbullying are on the agenda in newspapers and too frequently the protagonists of these events are the youngest because they’re fragile or naive. To counter these phenomena, Webecome was born, a service to prevent social unrest in primary school promoted by Intesa San Paolo.
The project was born as an educational proposal for primary schools to accompany teachers, school managers and children’s families in understanding the phenomena of social unrest; these develop from early school age, and it is therefore important to train all the figures involved in the daily and social life of the child to support him/her in growth. Parallel to the prevention path, Webecome also provides tools for the development of life skills, soft skills such as creativity, problem solving, emotional and social intelligence, essential for a positive and total growth path.
The development of the project as an educational path is a very interesting and courageous approach to such a broad and delicate subject, often treated superficially and with solutions aimed at contrasting the single episode (the act of discrimination in the classroom, the social chain dangerous for the child…), without considering that this is often a symptom of a profound, structural problem. Therefore it is important in designing a service to prevent social unrest in primary school to provide concrete support and involve the whole educational community; the school and the family are the two key institutions in the growth of the child and consequently are also fundamental for the growth of civil society.
These assumptions materialize in a free online platform with eight thematic itineraries created with the contribution of more than 60 experts in various fields. Through video interviews, educational videos, infographics, bibliographies and design tools, Webecome suggests to teachers and parents a proactive approach that aims at enhancing positive attitudes, rather than analyzing wrong behaviors. To date, the project is active in 100 schools, involves 120 teachers and a total of 2500 children.
The educational proposal is expressed in the Alphabet for Growing, 8 letters for 8 keywords that indicate the recipe for combating the phenomena of discomfort treated: Bullying, Diversity, Nutrition, Cyberbullying, Transversal skills, Addictions), Digital civics.
To develop the project, Intesa San Paolo turned to Logotel, which managed and coordinated all phases of the service, from concept to launch, with a co-design approach. This methodology has not only guided the development of the project, but is a common thread of every thematic path, in the belief that it can become a real approach to the whole life: just as in designing Webecome, the designers involved families, schools and dozens of experts in various fields, the paths offered by the platform provide the tools to face today’s complexity in a multidisciplinary perspective.
This parallelism is certainly wide-ranging, in the long term, but to hope for both civil and cultural growth of society it is necessary to start from the new generations, to support and educate them with the awareness that today’s children will be tomorrow’s adults. Therefore, we cannot stop at a traditional education, which underestimates current issues, instead very necessary for personal growth, and for this reason the path of Webecome seems to be the right one to take.
