Officially recognized by Italian Ministry of EducationSince 1989, scuolatoscana organizes courses of Italian language and culture in the historical center of Florence.
From the beginning we considered the fact that while there are those who travel for leisure, ffor culture or - as in our case - to learn a language, many, many more are those who are forced to travel, as the only way to find work, to escape from war, famine, deadly repressive regimes.
In the early 90s, at the dawn of the mass immigration in Europe, we decided to create a specific program for teaching Italian language to immigrants, which we proposed to the City of Florence. With this program we offered free scholarships for so-called "non-EU" students - that we integrated in classes with our other students - the lucky ones. We are pleased to say that some of these "immigrants" are now perfectly integrated into the social and economic fabric of Florence, working and giving their contribution to the community.
Years later we undertook further social initiatives, always in contact with the institutions of Florence, such as the Misericordia and the City Authority - cooperating also as educational partners with the Erasmus program and with the European Civil Service.
Every year for Christmas we have chosen to make donations to Amnesty International, MSF, AIRC, ANT, and UNHCR.as gifts to our business partners, in Italy and abroad;
With the UNHCR, in 2014, we hosted at our school inVia dei Benci, a photo exhibition about refugees and refugee camps, and organised a special event where students, teachers and citizens donated a substantial sum to UNHCR.
This 2016, we became a partner of UNHCR “Un'impresa speciale” campaign. You can find our logo at the homepage "www.unimpresaspeciale.it"
Since 2014 scuolatoscana also supports ICAN (www.disarmo.org/ican) - an international organization for the abolition of nuclear weapons - also with this association we organized - along with our students, teachers and friends - cultural and social events (aperitifs, Lecturae Dantis, guided visits to monuments in Florence), for fundraising and in order to promote the awareness of the dangers of nuclear proliferation.
We produced the Italian version of the video against nuclear proliferation "On the wings of a crane”, a Japanese cartoon for kids about the tragedy of Hiroshima.
It was a long and beautiful road that we shared with our colleagues, partners, and students. You are also invited to participate, of course !
Gabriele, Alberto and all the other women and men of good will, at Scuola Toscana.
