Fondazione Sacra Famiglia has created in Cesano Boscone 8 labs to qualify people suffering from autism and intellectual disability: pottery, carpentry, creative gardening, costume jewellery, cardboard, production of bonbonnières and greeting cards, creative recycling and creative needlecraft. In these labs, our guests can put their learning and their skills to the test by realizing unique and quality objects and activities. All of this fosters not only the process of learning single skills, but also it increases competence and self-esteem because, through their participation and their contribution, disabled people and autistic people feel like an active party of a world that respect their times and their weaknesses.

In these labs, instructors, occupational therapists and educators follow disabled people and people suffering from autism spectrum disorder. These therapists use structured psycheducation techniques and graphic facilitators (i.e. representing the working process thanks to pictures) in order to foster the learning process. Consequently, these techniques allow the guests to work on their own, to limit mistakes and to contain anxiety behaviours coming from little clearness and predictability of the request.

Labs in Fondazione Sacra Famiglia are now places of “opportunity”, where everybody can build and self-build. The suggested activities give the chance to gain experience, through active educational practice, with which the guests gain knowledge through direct contact with reality. Everybody is called to concrete work of situations, everybody can know and experience, everybody can satisfy his/her needs of relationship, expression, imagination, fantasy, through art language and through helps and facilitators that are necessary in learning. In the labs of Fondazione Sacra Famiglia everybody becomes part of a greater work, in which small actions gain value and in which disability and weakness of people become added value.

As for their activities, the “Arteticamente” qualification labs open their doors with the project “Normali Meraviglie” (Normal Wonders). The artistic director of this project is Alessandro Guerriero, and the project involves many designers and artists.

The Arteticamente labs want to be a place for an educational meeting between art and handicraft. For such a reason, during all year, we invite people from the territory and the whole town of Cesano Boscone to take part in courses for free time and educational projects addressed to children, young and adult people.