To mark the 26th Italian Language Week Around the World, the Casari Foundation in Cochabamba, with the support of the Embassy of Italy in La Paz, organised the contest Colorare l’Italiano.
This educational initiative, launched as part of the programme “Reconnecting With Your Culture”, was aimed at the dozens of vulnerable children who are welcomed daily at the Casari Foundation centre. The young participants were invited to colour in black-and-white pictures depicting themselves, accompanying them with short sentences in Italian. With paper and colours at hand, the children experimented with colour combinations, turning each drawing into an original interpretation of the world around them.
While extending his best wishes to the participants, Ambassador Fabio Messineo emphasised that the initiative – by nurturing the children’s natural creativity and spontaneously introducing them to the Italian language – has helped to build a genuine bridge of affection and friendship between the Foundation’s Bolivian branch and its supporters in Italy.
The contest is part of an international initiative aimed at promoting a ‘new humanism’, in which culture plays a central role, involving educational institutions from around the world and encouraging the exploration of the local area and a new narrative of local history. Massimo Casari, originally from Bergamo, and his wife Veronica have been running a shelter in Cochabamba – Bolivia’s third-largest city – for many years. The city has strong ties to Italy, thanks in part to various other charitable initiatives promoted by our compatriots as early as 1962.
