Coordinator

Formazione Professionale Alba Barolo S.c.a.r.l. (APRO) is a centre of vocational training in the following sectors: Mechanics, Electric and Automation Industry, Fashion and Clothing, Hairstyling and Beauty, Hotel Services. The students of the school, aged between 14 and 18 years, come from disadvantaged social, family, group and clan backgrounds. They come from the town of Alba and from the rural areas located around the city. The 30% of the students do not have the Italian nationality. There are almost 30 students with special didactic and guidance needs. 
The students have a poor knowledge of themselves. They find difficult to imagine themselves in the future. They do not receive a lot of control and motivation from their families. They use the time at their disposal to satisfy their immediate needs, finding difficult to plan their formative year.

They form informal spontaneous groups, which are set up and broke up without standard rules. They find difficult to join structured associations due to the lack of rules, whose they accept with a lot of difficulties. 
The formative period it is the unique time when they have to accept the rules; they can be pressed to think about their life and their opportunities. They can build their professional future.  
They should enter mentally in the professional family of the courses of study they are making.

The objective of Apro is to respond to the demands of the area concentrating on professional and vocational needs of the companies of the area that prepare youth for the world of employment   and refresher courses for those who are already employed.
Therefore the Consort Society of Alba-Barolo main objectives are the construction of a common organization for the rules and regulations and the development of activities of professional learning. Other objectives are school-work orientation, reintegration into the world of employment, and studies and research regarding the previously mentioned activities.

When the students begin attending, they are 14 years old and they are taught by professionals. They continue their training through work experience in companies and by studying with active and cross-disciplinary didactic methods and using laboratories with the most modern technologies. 
The courses last three years and at the end of the school period, the students get a professional qualification (Professional Compulsory Education) and they can begin working.
APRO courses are ideal for students who are keen on practical studies, for those who want to start a job, for students who have practical intelligence and for those who want to become small entrepreneurs. The best students become well paid professionals.

The project can motivate the students of the school to think properly to their future, to their professions and insertion in the labour market. They will have the chance to know different people and different point of views about the same things, professions, jobs. The guidance staff of the school will get the chance to discover different tools, instruments, materials used by the guidance operators of the other partners.

Useful internet sites about guidance in Italy:

- www.regione.piemonte.it/orientamento
- www.orientamento.provincia.cuneo.it
- www.isfol.it
- www.universo.miur.it
- www.almalaurea.it