“100×100: Bridges of Education”: when school becomes living diplomacy
The Department of Education of the National Congress of Ukrainian Associations in Italy had the opportunity to present the “100×100: Bridges of Education” project at a conference on Ukrainian studies in Italy, organised by Prof. Svitlana Shumilo and the Università per Stranieri di Siena.
The head of the Department, Tetiana Hryhorska, introduced the project to the audience and analysed its impact on promoting the Ukrainian language in Italy.
Launched on the initiative of the National Congress of Ukrainian Associations in Italy (CNAUI), the “100×100: Bridges of Education” project has since grown into a large international network. Many Ukrainian and Italian schools hold joint interactive online lessons and take part in international forums.
More than integration: a new status for the Ukrainian language
The project’s main goal is to restore the Ukrainian language to its rightful standing on the international stage: that of a prestigious, modern, living and scholarly European language.
For Ukrainian children in Italy, it is a powerful tool that helps them not only to preserve their roots but to take pride in them, turning their mother tongue from a “language of memories” into the language of a successful future.
For Italian pupils, it is a unique window onto Ukraine: a chance to dispel propaganda myths and discover a distinctive European country with a thousand-year-old civilisation.
For Ukrainian children in Ukraine, it is a powerful source of moral support and a living bridge to the world. Talking with their Italian peers gives them a sense of European solidarity, helps them overcome language barriers and lets them see with their own eyes that young Europeans stand shoulder to shoulder with them. This is real integration into the European space, through friendship and genuine dialogue.
Word by word, towards a shared future
This is a quiet but remarkably concrete kind of diplomacy. It needs no grand declarations, because it is built every day — word by word, right in the classroom, through living dialogue among a new generation of Europeans.
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