News & Views

In Turin the final event of the CUP project

Vanessa Marotta

After 36 months, the Convicts Upskilling Pathways (CUP) project came to an end, the result of an international partnership coordinated by the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation and co-financed by the European Erasmus + program. 

On July 14th, at the Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, the concluding conference of the program will be held in attendance, created with the aim of improving the medium-long term employability and social reintegration of 130 inmates in six European prisons in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and the Netherlands.

The event will be an opportunity to present the results obtained, share the learning that emerged and discuss with national and international experts on the subject of training for the employability of detainees.

During the 3 years of its implementation, the CUP project focused on the experimentation of innovative training modules based on technical, basic and soft skills, involving prisoners and prison operators with the following main objectives:

Develop effective and replicable training modules aimed at improving the skills and medium-long term employability of prisoners and former prisoners, placing specific emphasis on transversal skills identified by employers as fundamental selection criteria for recruitment;

Promote the culture of evaluation, developing evaluation tools to allow prison workers and third sector organizations to measure the impact of educational interventions on prisoners and be able to evaluate their social reintegration.

Develop an advocacy strategy, “Call to Action”, aimed at policy makers and stakeholders in order to change the narrative on the issue of education in prison and inform the debate on the employability and social reintegration of prisoners and ex-prisoners in national and international level.