The capital of Piedmont is a city with a thousand faces: Turin was the first capital of Italy and is world-famous for being the birthplace of Fiat, but also for its historical and artistic charm and the splendid Egyptian Museum. Its cultural charm boasts a distinct international flair, as well as some very special curiosities: in which other Italian city is the main artery – Via Lagrange – dedicated to a mathematician who helped found a scientific academy?
Piedmontese culture has always been represented within our College, which makes its roots in Italy a source of pride, all the more so since the Piedmont Region was one of the first in Italy to have the foresight to offer scholarships to its students who passed the Italian UWC selections to enable them to attend the United World College of the Adriatic. Many of them returned to Duino on the occasion of the two Alumni Reunions last July, which saw almost 400 former students return to the College 30 and 10 years after graduation. We asked them to tell us what the UWC experience meant to them.
We talk to Anna Fruttero, from Fossano (CN), who lives in the US in Washington and is a senior economist at the World Bank. Anna has worked extensively on poverty and social protection issues in Latin America and the Caribbean, led the implementation and technical support of World Bank projects in Brazil, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, and conducted analytical research on individual countries and gender inequality.
“In my case, it was decisive to have benefited from a full scholarship, because it allowed me greater autonomy in deciding to go to study away from home when I was still a minor. I didn’t have to ask for financial help from my family and I didn’t take away resources that would have been necessary, but rather complicated, to devote to my three brothers and sisters”.
Anna’s two years in Duino from 1988 to 1990 saw her immersed in an international and multicultural community “the first year my roommates were a Swedish girl and a girl from Swaziland” (now Eswatini ed.). “Thanks to the College, I mastered the English language perfectly, gained my independence and had a very stimulating adventure.” As is often the case with boarding schools, exposure to so many different cultures enhances rather than dampens its students’ attachment to their roots. “I realised that there are different ways of living and that there is no right and wrong, but at the same time I also learnt to appreciate my roots even more. My daughters have been speaking and singing in Piedmontese dialect since birth, as well as in English, and we spend every summer in Fossano, where I have brought friends from all over the world: from Japan, India, China and many other countries.”
Reiterating her sense of gratitude to her regional administration for offering her this opportunity, Anna appreciates “the great foresight of the Piedmont Region in investing in these scholarships. Attending the Collegio di Duino with people from such different cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds is an extraordinary opportunity and everyone gives something back in their own way. I went abroad for work, but that was my vocation, I would have done it anyway. But I have always felt like an ambassador of my land and I learnt this in Duino’.
Jolanda Nava, on the other hand, from Turin, who attended the College from 2011 to 2013, took the opposite route. She is a software engineer at Holmusk in Singapore, a company that deals with digital health and data analysis for solving complex problems in the field of chronic diseases. “When I participated in the UWC Italian Selections, I aimed to attend the UWC College in Singapore because I was attracted by the allure of the Orient. Then I attended the College of Duino thanks to a scholarship offered by the Piedmont region, but it was like travelling around the world for two whole years. During that time, the friendships I made at the College confirmed my passion for the Far East.”
“After graduating, I attended university in Singapore and started working there. At that time I frequented the UWC alumni network in Singapore a lot, where I was welcomed like in a big family, and I helped with the UWC selections in that part of the world. Then I felt the urge to return home and now I work for a company in Singapore but live in Turin.”
“In the baggage acquired in Duino I certainly took with me the sense of freedom and openness to the world that the College conveys.” – says Virginia Minni, another young woman from Turin who is completing a PhD in economics at the prestigious London School of Economics.
“The impact on my personal life was decisive because after 11 years I am still together with my partner whom I met at the Collegio. We live together in London, where several other former students of the College have also passed through over the years. I am passionate about my studies and after my doctorate at the London School of Economics I would like to continue researching and pursue an academic career. I am working on labour and development economics and Duino has certainly helped me to cultivate these interests’.”
“The impact of the College on my life was immeasurable. The first year my roommates were a Finnish, a Swede, a Cypriot and another Italian. The stimuli the College offered us were so many and I wanted to do a bit of everything. The first thing I learnt was how best to manage my time and prioritise. Another valuable asset I took with me was learning to be with completely different people with great spontaneity and naturalness.”
After Duino, she studied political science in Padua with a focus on international relations and after working for 10 years at the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, Monica is now Senior Program Coordinator at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development in Vienna, a European body with 19 member states, where she is in charge of policy dialogues between the EU and the African continent on migration.
But the Piedmont region has not only supported female students in Duino! Students from the most diverse backgrounds have also attended our College. Andrea Dotto, from the province of Cuneo, at Duino in 2009-11, now is a mathematician and lives in Chicago. Francesco Lasagni, from Turin, at the college in 2010-12 is instead an engineer. “For two years I found myself in an environment where one can express oneself to one’s full potential, and so the College taught me a different attention to the world and to people, a greater curiosity and drive to seek my own path and discover my passions. Returning home, I wanted to go back to being a scout and an educator, but I brought with me a different kind of sensitivity and attention to people than before, which allows me to be more incisive”.
Finally, Tommaso Cerasuolo from Rivoli, Duino in 1989-91, studied illustration and animation at the European Institute of Design in Turin, while cultivating his passion for music with the band Perturbazioni – with whom he participated in the 2014 edition of the Sanremo Festival. Always with a strong vocation for social work, Tommaso has been collaborating for five years with the Finale Emilia band Rulli Frulli, a group founded after the earthquake in Emilia and made up of around fifty percussionists and a vocal section, in which able-bodied youngsters and disabled boys and girls united by their passion for music take part.
To enter our College, it is necessary to participate in a selection process divided into two stages, a first interregional and a final national stage. The call for applications promoted by the Italian National Commission for United World Colleges is circulated throughout the country and also reported in some of the major national newspapers. At the end of the selection process, a merit ranking is drawn up and, on the basis of the financial situation of the household, the selected candidates are matched with the available scholarships. In addition to the Piedmont Region, Piedmont’s partners supporting the scholarships include Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and Fondazione Agnelli.
