ABOUT US

We Have Founded an Organisation to Turn the Testimonies of Childhood and Adolescence into a Cultural and Social Instrument: Using Them to Enhance the Empowerment of the New Generations.

The nonprofit organisation Quaderni Aperti (Open Notebooks) was founded in 2014 to disseminate and enhance the culture of childhood and adolescence, and use the testimonies of children and young people as a tool to foster the empowerment of the new generations.

We are a group of people who develop cultural and social activities and projects, in collaboration with organisations, companies, and individuals that share our values and aims.

We believe that listening to the voices of the new generations is fundamental to understanding today’s world, and that their involvement in social actions and political choices is necessary to build tomorrow’s world.

The association is part of the Italian Society for the Study of Historical and Educational Heritage (SIPSE).

MISSION

We collect, catalogue and digitise school notebooks, diaries and letters from childhood and adolescence, which are essential for historical research on the daily life and education of young people in Italy and around the world.
Our goal is to protect and promote this valuable heritage through cultural activities and projects that use childhood testimonies (both from our archives and from new sources) as a means of fostering social cohesion.

VISION

We want to spread the message that “children, boys and girls, make history”.
We want to inspire them and the adults around them to take action and policies that empower and involve the new generations, starting from early childhood.
We believe that the testimonies of childhood and adolescence, from any time and place, are key to this process, because they reveal the relationship between the young and the society they live in.
We want to encourage reflection and action on this topic not only among specialists, but also among teachers, educators, intellectuals, and especially among children and young people themselves.
We want them to realise the important role they have in shaping the present and the future, by learning from their past.

LET’s work together

We want to amplify the voices of the new generations, past and present, and engage children and young people in social and cultural processes.
We think that the testimonies of childhood and adolescence, from any time and place, have a lot of value for history, education, social cohesion and empowerment of young people around the world.
 
That’s why we are always looking for partners, in Italy and abroad, who share our vision and want to work with us on innovative projects and products, or improve the ones we have already started with Quaderni Aperti.

 

We have worked with organisations that care about different aspects of our archive: social history, pedagogy, anthropology, calligraphy, illustration. With them, we have created exhibitions, workshops, meetings, readings, publications, podcasts and seminars.

DO YOU SHARE OUR VISION AND WANT TO JOIN OUR MISSION?
CONTACT US!

©2024 Quaderni Aperti