Florentine non-profit Fondazione Claudio Ciai is marking its tenth anniversary, having been established in 2014 by Claudio Ciai’s family and friends following a tragic car accident that resulted in years of suffering and, finally, his death. Since then, the foundation, led by Claudio’s son, Francesco Ciai, has helped over 350 people and organizations, and raised over 250,000 euro. It promotes the social inclusion of people with disabilities and defends human rights.
The tenth anniversary coincides with some good news for the foundation as it has been selected by the bioMérieux Endowment Fund for Education, a charity founded by the market leader diagnostics company with a branch in Ponte a Ema, near Florence, as the winner of a European creative project and 90,000 euro of funding.
The three-year project called Didactic Nature aims to involve children aged between three and eight years old from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds in the Florence area and refugees from countries such as Ukraine and Afghanistan. The 150 young participants will take part in nature-centric experiences, such as gardening and beekeeping lessons, English classes, dog therapy, riding lessons, and even visits to a petting zoo that houses alpacas. At the end of the three years, the project will continue beyond Florence, as the foundation, with the collaboration of Laboratorio MARE, creates a digital toolkit in Italian and English to give communities the opportunity to replicate the experience and build activities independently, anytime and anywhere.
“It is a great satisfaction for me to think about these 10 years of life of our foundation, about all the people and communities with whom we have come into contact and on whom we have had a concrete impact,” remarks Francesco Ciai, president of the Ciai Foundation. “All in the name of my father who was taken away from us too soon and so violently. We started as a small group of volunteers who started doing neighborhood markets until we became an established foundation that reinvests 100 per cent of donations in concrete projects…I’m curious to see what the next 10 years have in store for us!”
The bioMérieux Endowment Fund for Education, a non-profit organization created in 2020, works towards equal opportunities with the purpose of reducing inequalities through education. It relies on all bioMérieux employees around the world to identify and support local projects dedicated to the education of children.
The Claudio Ciai Foundation will launch the first Didactic Nature activities in April after involving several local organizations working with children.
