Meaning-Making Models

The Meaning-Making Models project took place at Cagliari, in Sardinia island. Cagliari is the capital city of the independent region of Sardinia. It is a beautiful graphic city with colourful, old traditional buildings which are surrounded by exotic and paradise beaches. Sardinia is located in the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered an attractive tourist destination especially in Summer days.

For this project, Coda di Lupo had the responsibility to provide the YW with the skills necessary to support young people with disabilities and understand the needs related to their individual characteristics – values, expectations, volitions – in order to help them in searching for occupational roles and meaningful activities and to achieve a good self-fulfilment, through the use of non-formal education tools called MEANING-MAKING MODELS.

Secondary aim of the project was to get involved with different cultures in between the activities. The very first day the intercultural evening took place where we had the chance to get to know each other. Eight different countries-organisations exposed their main practices for people with disabilities.

An additional interesting activity was a meeting with disabled persons at the University of Cagliari. At the beginning of the meeting a sociologist had mentioned what the University offers to students with disabilities during their studies and after their graduation. It was also very helpful to understand how people with disabilities are considering the meaning of life and how they react in any simple or complicated situation. We devoted a whole day to use the MOHO (Model of Human Occupation) to analyse why a person is involved or not in a certain activity or occupation. That could help young people to know more about their meaningful occupations and the possibilities of engaging activities that could be meaningful in the future.

The following day, playing the game ’’7 words for…Life’’ was a unique and special experience. At the beginning of this game we were requested to write seven words that define our life individually. Among all other groups our group ended the game with the seven valuable words below: Love, Freedom, Growing, Health, Relations, Motivation, Nature.