“Our collective, and the associations network through which it acts, is an extraordinary strength with an immense potential.” But, “will it always be so?”
Asking the question is Consul General of Italy in Toronto, Gianni Bardini, in his second letter to the community published by Corriere Canadese/Tandem.
Further to the debate unleashed by his first open letter, Bardini offers four concrete proposals to re-launch the role of associations and to promote the Italian culture. Here is the list:
- The “Give the Queen a Hand” project: a community effort to cover the cost of a contract teacher, to save and re-establish the Italian department at Queen’s University hit by heavy budget cuts;
- The “Youth to Italy” project: creating, through the Chamber of Commerce network, a database of Italian cultural institutes and related organizations willing to offer summer training internships to Italian-Canadian youth;
- The “United, Far and Near” project: to organize a formal community event in 2011 to mark the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, through the creation of an “authoritative organizing committee of representatives from the collective;”
- The “Promote Leonardo” project: to offer “Italian” school alternatives such as the Leonardo da Vinci Academy in Toronto to the private Anglo-Saxon and French schools.
“The many associations,” writes the consul, “could help the Leonardo da Vinci [school] very much simply by promoting it among their associates.” u


For more information visit www.corriere.com/italianita.

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