3

cities

500

students participating in mentoring programmes

10

Participating Comprehensive Schools

In 2025, we promoted an initiative aimed at schools in Rome that, for various reasons, did not take part in the municipal “Scuole Aperte” program for the 2025–26 and 2026–27 school years. The Program, inspired by the logic of the municipal initiative, seeks to prevent educational poverty and strengthen an extended school community by encouraging the active involvement of students and families. Schools were allocated financial support to carry out extracurricular activities in the afternoons, evenings, and weekends, with the goal of broadening the educational offer, countering school dropout, promoting inclusion, and supporting students and families. The activities – designed by the schools with the support of local Third Sector organizations – range from artistic workshops to study support, from cultural initiatives to psycho‑pedagogical programs, within a framework of broad planning autonomy.

Since January 2025, we have been supporting Spazio Stella, an experimental center in Cologno Monzese dedicated to families with children aged 0–6.
The service offers flexible play and socialization experiences outside formal educational settings, reaching families who, for economic and/or cultural reasons, do not access traditional services.
Managed by Koinè Cooperativa Sociale on behalf of the Municipality of Cologno Monzese, Spazio Stella is located within the Boccaccio school complex, a 0–6 hub situated in the peripheral neighborhood of the same name, near the Stella public housing area, characterized by high population density and widespread social vulnerability.
The initiative aims to promote access for children aged 0–6 to meaningful educational experiences, support parenting skills, and encourage participation in neighborhood life.
Through services such as the Early Childhood Center, the play space, and Spazio Cicogna – developed in collaboration with the family counseling center – it reached more than 50 families between January 2025 and June 2026.

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Aware of the importance of high‑quality educational interventions for children aged 0–6, we developed – together with the Centro per la Salute del Bambino (CSB) – a three‑year initiative aimed at strengthening the coordinated support system for parents during the early years of their children’s lives.
The initiative, which builds on CSB’s previous experiences, aligns with leading international scientific knowledge and is structured around three main areas of work:
– supporting research activities and the development of practical tools for educators and professionals working with families of children aged 0–6, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy and Applied Psychology at the University of Padua;
– strengthening CSB’s Competence Center and national networks dedicated to early childhood services and home‑visiting programs;
– piloting two innovative interventions: on the one hand, introducing the role of a “network facilitator” in three Italian cities, tasked with promoting integration among the various educational, social, health, and cultural services offered to families with children aged 0–6; on the other hand, opening “community‑oriented nurseries” in two Italian cities, providing spaces and activities also for families who typically do not access early childhood services.

Click here to know more about CSB

Starting in 2023, we launched a Program aimed at non‑profit nursery schools, with the goal of strengthening their educational offer.

The initiative became fully operational in April 2024 with the launch of an experimental program for non‑profit nurseries active in the Municipality of Milan, offering them the opportunity to access non‑repayable grants designed to improve the overall quality of educational provision through interventions related to: pedagogical training, redesign of gardens and outdoor spaces, building renovations, and the purchase of furniture and teaching materials.

Thanks to the experimental program, support was initiated in 2024 for 13 nursery schools (managed by 12 different non‑profit organizations, operating across 8 districts of the Municipality of Milan).

In 2025, the initiative continued by expanding its scope to the Metropolitan City of Milan, where we supported 13 nurseries, focusing our efforts on services operating in more vulnerable territorial areas.

Key numbers

450

children beneficiaries of the interventions

26

involved nurseries

165

educators involved in pedagogical training programs

Since 2021, we have launched a long‑term collaboration with the Foqus Foundation and the Social Enterprise Dalla Parte Dei Bambini in Naples to create a new school offering high‑quality, environmentally oriented education in the social context of Naples’ Quartieri Spagnoli, an area marked by significant levels of economic and educational poverty.
In the 2025–26 school year, EduQa reached the planned number of children enrolled across all school levels, all attending full‑time, with the following distribution:

• 74 in the nursery (0–2 years);
• 183 in preschool (3–5 years);
• 285 in primary school (6–10 years);
• 52 in lower secondary school

All construction work was carried out with a focus on urban regeneration and territorial redevelopment. The schools were created by restoring buildings in the neighborhood that had been largely abandoned, converting them into learning environments designed for innovative educational practices and for promoting a new environmental culture.

The initiative serves as a reference model for our activities due to:
– the strong emphasis on the pedagogical approach, inspired by the active school tradition of the Freinet model, aiming to make it a center of educational excellence;
– the significant social dimension embedded in all actions to counter educational poverty and school dropout;
– the important role in promoting a new culture of sustainable development, which we hope will eventually influence the entire school system.

Key numbers

Around

500

children to benefit annually when fully operational

Around

2,700 m²

of indoor space and 400 m² of restored green area

1

Garden-Lab with plant species and spaces for lessons on nature and the environment

10

year project time horizon

Click here to learn more about GEA 2023 – Giornate Educazione Ambiente and the inauguration of EDUQA

Click here to know more about EduQa

Starting from the end of 2022, we initiated the early stages of a broad initiative (with a long-term horizon) in Palermo, aimed at enriching the educational offerings and countering the risk of educational failure in certain public schools in the city, particularly in the neighborhoods of Settecannoli, Cuba-Calatafimi, Albergheria-Ballarò, and Brancaccio-Sperone, which are characterized by high levels of educational poverty.

Now in its second year of operation, the Masì initiative, which means “together” in Greek, currently involves 11 schools, 108 classes (fourth and fifth grades of elementary school, and first, second, and third grades of middle school), and over 1,800 students.

This initiative thrives on close collaboration between schools and several local nonprofit organizations (Libera Palermo, Mare Memoria Viva, Centro d’Accoglienza Padre Nostro, and Per Esempio), whose educators, with nearly 40,000 hours of planned educational activities throughout the year, are now an integral part of the educational offerings of the three institutions.

Through the implementation of innovative and interdisciplinary teaching methodologies among teachers and educators, the initiative aims to prevent educational failure among students and the phenomenon of infrequency, promoting an improvement in learning outcomes

Key numbers

108

classes involved

3

Comprehensive Institutes involved, for a total of 22 facilities located in 7 different neighborhoods

1,800

students involved

3-6 

years of temporal intervention horizon

“School of Sustainability” is an educational program aimed at teachers and students in secondary schools of both first and second levels throughout Italy. It aims to address the issue of sustainability through an interdisciplinary approach to major environmental challenges, focusing on the study and analysis of problems and potential solutions.

The initiative that has reached its second edition, has been designed in collaboration with Future Education Modena (FEM) and aims to educate about the complexity of environmental issues and their interdisciplinary nature while preventing “climate change anxiety” by promoting the active involvement of young people.

Designed with both an in-person component and an “online” component available to all Italian teachers, “School of Sustainability” involved approximately 68 classes, 187 teachers, and 664 students during the 2023-24 school year.

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This initiative involves the renovation, maintenance and expansion of the Jewish Kindergarten and Primary School run by the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki (JCT). The school aims to be a centre of excellence, with the latest technology and equipment, and will be open to all children regardless of religion and country of origin.

In 2021, the school was named after the founder of the Bolton. Joseph Nissim was born in Thessaloniki but moved to Italy in 1948 where he began a long and successful business career. He lived until the age of 100 and worked with passion, ingenuity, curiosity and courage until the very end of his life.

Key numbers

Around

80

students taught annually

2

levels of education

10

year project time horizon

Under this initiative, now in its second edition, HOC-Lab, a laboratory of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of Politecnico of Milan, is developing an experimental online course on sustainability-related issues and innovative teaching methods for use by lower and upper secondary school teachers in the 2024-25 school year.

The activities, that teachers will be able to access free of charge through an open registration process, will foster the knowledge and technical skills necessary to teach sustainable development (especially environmental aspects) and will provide innovative tools for transferring technical and scientific skills in class.

The experiment, which currently involves a small group of secondary school teachers, is designed to evaluate the need for continuous training that could potentially be extended to primary school teachers as well.