Thanks to the support of Generali Italia and its agents, the initiative promotes and fosters educational innovation in hospitals.
Padua, February 22, 2022 – The University Hospital of Padua welcomes the Andrea Bocelli Foundation and the ABF TeachBus: the mobile symbol of the innovative “ABF Digital Lab” project that supports the implementation of new educational technologies for the teachers and students at the hospital school in carrying out their curricular and non-curricular activities.
The initiative recognizes and promotes education as a key component of caring for the well-being of hospitalized children and adolescents and is part of the development and relaunch of our mission of “Empowering People & Communities”. This is a daily commitment that sees a team of professionals plan the strategic development of ABF’s projects, striving to promote the conditions to ensure that people and communities suffering from economic and social hardship are able to acquire new opportunities to recognize, nurture and develop their potential.
“At ABF, we strongly believe that taking care of an individual, especially a child, means taking care of their health and their education because these are the foundations for creating the conditions that allow them to express their fullest potential,” – Laura Biancalani, ABF President – “Fostering access to education has always been the cornerstone of the work that the foundation advances in Italy and abroad in line with the fourth Sustainable Development goal of the Agenda 2030 promoted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. In particular, we believe that in the hospital setting, strengthening educational tools and projects is one of the most effective elements for caring for the child and their family.”
“Our goal is to provide care, but this also includes the all-round well-being of children. The TeachBus that – from today – will become part of our school, within the Pediatric Ward, represents a technological and teaching resource that the teachers working in the pediatric ward can use in their educational pathways together with the children admitted to the hospital. An effective curriculum, access to culture and knowledge, teamwork with the other students and teachers, is undoubtedly an important aid in the therapeutic process” – Michele Tessarin, Medical Director of the University Hospital of Padua.
This TeachBus in Padua is ABF’s sixth, which the Italian tenor’s Foundation has delivered to hospitals that are part of the AOPI (the Italian Pediatric Hospitals Association) network, thanks to the continuing support of Generali Italia and its agents.
Marco Oddone, Chief Marketing & Distribution Officer of Generali Italia, stated: “With our network, we work hard every day to have a positive impact on the real economy and on people’s lives, giving substance and depth to our role as a life partner during all the important moments. Together with the Bocelli Foundation, and the precious contribution of our agents, we want to support the children admitted to the long-stay wards of Italian pediatric hospitals to offer them tangible support. For us, this means engendering a positive impact on the regions in which we live, through actions that foster the growth and development of communities.”
Health Director Dr. Michele Tessarin, Dr. Giuseppe Dal Ben, and Dr. Andrea Muto, the teachers Liviana Da Dalt, Giuseppe Turetta, and Giacomo Drago, Generali Italia Area Manager Marco Moscatelli, and Serafino Carli, the Pedagogical Coordinator of ABF’s projects, were present for the inauguration. The initiative is supported by Generali Italia and its agents.
The Digital Lab was created in line with Sustainable Development goal 4 of the Agenda 2030 promoted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, with the aim of developing and implementing tangible projects that strongly impact education in Italy and abroad in order to offer opportunities for people and communities to fully express their potential.
Pre-COVID data certified that there were over 70,000 so-called “hospital” students in Italy. This rises to one million if we include children with chronic diseases who are suffering from complex illnesses. It is all these children that this project wishes to reach in order to foster the inclusion and empowerment of sick children who are either hospitalized or day hospital patients and attending the school within the hospital. Through its Digital Lab project, ABF wishes to help create and maintain the conditions that make the new educational technologies tools for supporting, integrating and enriching relationship-building, knowledge and learning processes in hospitals.
In implementing this project, ABF makes use of three key elements: the Teachbus, a library of devices capable of guaranteeing that students are able to maintain their relationships with their schoolmates, teachers and atelieristas; the online ABF Educational platform that creates a network between a rich selection of educational tools; the Digital Atelierista, a 4.0 librarian specializing in the use of new educational technologies who promotes new and transversal perspectives on the use of technological tools for students, thereby supporting teachers and families in how to best use these devices.