Launching In A Global Pandemic
By Andrea Pastorelli, CEO of Teach For Italy
2020 was supposed to be an exciting year for Teach For Italy. After years of hard work by so many people, we were finally going to launch our programme and show the Italian education system that change is possible. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted our plans and expectations for 2020, but it hasn’t altered our main mission. We are determined to launch. We cannot afford not to. Even though we know it won’t be easy.
This virus is showing us that no one is immune. No country is spared. However, the world has seen how Italy has been hit particularly hard. In turn, as an organization, Teach For Italy has been dealt an outsized blow. The country has been on the longest national lockdown in the world, which is ravaging our economy. To make it worse, Lombardy, the region where the crisis is most severe, is the economic heart of Italy. It’s also where most of our prospective donors and partners are based. Suddenly, in early March, all planned meetings and events were cancelled. Most of them are turning their attention to acute business needs, others are justifiably donating to local hospitals and emergency services, which are still completely overwhelmed.
All of this has had a personal toll too. The virus entered my home, affected my family, and forced me to live in quarantine for five weeks. Yesterday I learned that a member of our team is sick and will be forced to quarantine for two weeks. I stayed up late trying to provide reassurance and trying to keep spirits high, sharing my own experience dealing with quarantine and the advice I had received from doctors weeks before.
In many ways, this is a terrible year to launch an organization. Yet, our role in schools in Italy has never been more vital. Our mission has never been more important. The prolonged closure of Italian schools has widened existing inequalities. Data shows how 1.7 million children across Italy stopped learning the moment schools closed. Their families and/or their schools don’t have the tools or the resources to guarantee a minimum level of distant learning. The school system is completely unprepared to effectively reopen in September.
We have revised our operational plans, cut costs and cancelled plans to hire extra staff. We have redesigned our entire operations to work virtually, from recruitment and selection to our summer training. Yet, we keep moving forward thanks to the support of this incredible network of partners and supporters. Teach First Deutschland has seconded one of their core members of staff for three months to support our operations; Empieza Por Educar’s selection team has helped us design and run our assessment centres; Teach For Sweden is supporting our thinking around our summer institute. Teach For All’s global organization cares deeply about supporting us so that we can start this amazing work in Italy. Not only through their constant collaboration, thought partnership and knowledge building but also through helping us find potential pathways to funding at a time that it is most needed. I am so grateful for the leadership and generosity of so many of my Teach For All colleagues.
Being actively involved in the selection of our fellows over the past few weeks I have met incredible young people who are excited about the prospect of being in the classroom in September, supporting the reopening of our school system and creating lasting positive change out of this emergency situation that will have a long term impact in Italy. I am determined not to let them down.
