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The Knowledge Volunteers Network

 

It was a beautiful and exciting experience. I really didn’t think that I would receive an award! There were 322 candidates and just 9 awards. Then, they announced my name … Special Mention for “Social Commitment”! My heart went through the roof. I was so happy that I started shaking. It’s the first time I receive an award presented by authorities and in front of so many people. Participating in this competition has helped me to understand the true commitment of our authorities and how so many of us are proud to be volunteers. It’s just beautiful to be able to find the time to do good and transmit one’s knowledge to others. This award is the first brick I have laid in building my dream house.

When they presented the award, I was so excited that I did not know what to do. I was so incredibly full of Joy!   I loved it when they took the picture of us with the Mayor of Rome. My classmates and teachers applauded me and I just felt so excited that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. My sister also came to the awards ceremony … my mother didn’t even want her to miss a day of school for the event! I’d like to thank all those who voted for me.

 

I was incredibly curious and enthusiastic about the ceremony, because I had never seen the hall in which the Rome Council convenes. When they announced the Special Mention for Career Award, I was in heaven! Deputy Mayor Sveva Belviso presented me with the award and urged me to persevere in the future. It was just so exciting. Then, as I returned to my seat, I noticed how touched my parents and teachers were. It was an intense, interesting experience. I hope to continue dealing with elders even in the future.  

Dearest Cecilia and Ana, I am incredibly honoured by this award. My first thoughts went out to this new group of friends that I have made at the Fondazione Mondo Digitale. Participating in this fantastic team of “Knowledge Volunteers” is really something to be both proud and pleased about. And I’ve said this well before today! The essence of volunteering is a medicine that every free person feels good about practicing in this society and meeting such interesting elders, students and immigrants. Volunteers offer everything they have with trust, a heartfelt warmth and a deep desire to help others.

 

Confusion, embarrassment, joy and moved. I will continue to be moved every time I think about this award because it gives value and injects further trust into a deliberate choice that I have made right from my first year as a teacher. I decided to leave the multinational company that I had worked at for twelve years and used that baggage of experience to delve into my new role. Not only as a teacher, but also as a mother, I’m always looking at everything from new angles. It’s essential to be curious to become part of a winning team! Our team won this award on account of our respect for volunteering, for elder students and ourselves, too. And, of course, receiving an award is always a pleasure. This prize will certainly please my students who have seen me suffer all year with an old laptop that very computer, but not very portable! I am really very lucky to have been able to work at my school with a fantastic headmaster who is not afraid of change, a headmaster who pushes for innovation and the use of all those tools that bring undeniable advantages. I am lucky to have met people like Cecilia and Ana who transmitted all their moral and professional support throughout the course of the year. Their incredible human qualities and resolve even powered me telepathically! I am grateful for having met the enormously resourceful Professor Molina, who is capable of transforming even the most traditional of teachers into an innovator, let alone anyone who is ready to take the leap!

Thanks for having made the transition from private to public far less traumatic than it would have been without you and my school It’s an honour to be part of this highly educational context, because as the Germans say KLASSE IST KEIN WASSER.

I practically can’t even describe my feelings! It’s like for a fraction of a second I hit infinity and then came back into real time. Thanks to the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, this is the first time, outside of school, that my skills are fully recognized! I feel very serious about this way of evaluating individuals. In fact, I want people to judge me for my potential, the potential that I have developed in school and that I have put into practice with volunteering. The fact that I have even received an award is incredible! My manuals on the use of Windows O.S. 7 and the work that my elder students have accomplished are just small pieces in a larger puzzle of my very determined competences!

My feelings today? It’s just part of the fantastic feeling of participating in this project! It’s just like on the first day of the project with the classroom full of eager elders ready for a new world of technology … It's part of all the effort and commitment that my students put into enriching themselves. It’s been a great experience and I share it with my fantastic tutors! It’s an award that signals the beginning of a journey that can lead us towards a new and more efficient culture of volunteering, one based on a true desire to share one’s knowledge with others. At this point, I also have to thank Cecilia and her endless enthusiasm who made this fantastic experience possible. A heartfelt thank-you to everyone!

 

Tension, tension, tension… Leaving for Rome was an adventure! I decided to come just the day before.  Luckily, I found a seat on the plane and the school helped me to book the tickets. The next day we set off for Rome. I was really excited. I had never been to Rome before and now I was even a candidate for a scholarship! I arrived at the awards ceremony as a taught as a violin string. I sat down expecting the usual addresses, but instead soon found myself completely immersed in the speeches, that of Gennaro Sangiuliano, the President of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, as well as Carlo Parmeggiani and Alfonso Molina’s. What a fantastic review of learning and the potential of our brains! Then, the tension rose again. When they proclaimed the winners, I felt as if I had not studied for my finals, but then they pronounced my name and the joy just exploded! I’ll never forget it. In a matter of seconds, I swirled with the memories of situations, people and sensations, just as if I were in a movie, but this time I was the protagonist and the adventure with the elders was real.

A fantastic feeling. I just can’t describe it in words. I couldn’t believe it when they called out my name. I feel both gratitude to the FMD that gave me this opportunity and a deep sense of having accomplished something meaningful. That’s what this award means to me. It’s not about money or the ceremony, but the sum of what these two things represent. I look at things concretely:  the elderly centre needs the Internet. This is what Mayor Alemanno said after the ceremony and I believe that its true. This award represents, as Swedish photographer Anders Sköld said at the Esquilino Elderly Centre: “It’s what's in your heart.” “This awards helps others see who you are.”