**SopraSotto** is a self-organized project for early childhood care founded in 2013 in Milan and maintained by a group of parents who share a completely transformed work context compared to the previous generations. Many families that are taking part in the project – either couples or single parents, heterosexual or homosexual parents, natives of Milan or new arrivals to the city – have to face an economic precarity which has generated new needs that cannot be fully met by public models of early childhood care, since they are organized around a working population that no longer represents the majority, particularly in a large metropolis such as Milan.
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SopraSotto is managed by a group of parents and teachers who meet monthly and who take decisions on organizational issues, such as coordinating the maintenance and repair of the space and the projects related to the pedagogical activities.
Through the active participation of parents and coordination through contemporary communication devices, SopraSotto is entirely organized by those who use it. There are no "service" roles, but interchangeable ones, on a rotating schedule, that ensure:
- the daily organization of work;
- the feeding of children and teachers;
- the maintenance and repair of the space and its objects;
- the organization of thematic activities and workshops for children;
As a place for early childhood development and socialization, a place where the first separation of the child from parents occurs, SopraSotto was conceived as an open and accessible environment. If parents desire so, they can become an integral part of the everyday environment. This allows SopraSotto to attend not only to the child's need for growth and autonomy but also to parents' feelings about separation and their need to meet other people who are going through a similar experience. For example, if parents want to continue breastfeeding during the day or if they have time to develop a specific pedagogical thematic path in agreement with the group, SopraSotto gives them the possibility to do so.
SopraSotto is collaborating closely with the associations and informal groups in the neighbourhood. For example, the communal garden "Isola Pepe Verde" hosts the lab during the summer, offering a play area and some contact with plants and nature, while the local GAS (Solidarity Purchase Group) network provides the first seasonal food products that the parents cook and the teachers give out to children. In addition, in a typical workshop day, kids make the trips to the market, to the library and to the craft shops.
Food is considered an important element in children's education. From the selection of groceries to food preparation, parents build on each other's knowledge to enable the children to acquire a first-hand, lived and healthy relationship with food. SopraSotto chooses seasonal produce, cultivated locally, and it embraces a food philosophy that focuses not only on nourishment but also food culture.
