sustainability

5,000 teachers respond to the Mondadori Group survey on sustainability issues

Diversity, equality and inclusion are the priority for 61% of teachers

In second place “promotion of reading and socio-cultural growth” (54.3%).
Third, “management of environmental impacts” (51.9%)

Which sustainability issues do teachers consider of greatest relevance to respond to the expectations of the world of school?

The Mondadori Group, Italy’s leading publisher of school textbooks with the Mondadori Education, Rizzoli Education and D Scuola publishing houses, put the question in an online questionnaire to approximately 5,000 teachers in primary schools (27%), junior high schools (28%) and senior high schools (45%) all over Italy.

The survey – which collected the opinions of educators – is part of the listening and stakeholder engagement activities promoted by the Group for its consolidated Non-Financial Disclosure.

The contributions from the teachers were taken into consideration during the drafting of the Group’s first Sustainability Plan: a project that identifies the areas and guidelines on which the Segrate-based Group will work in the future, with short- and medium-term objectives, to improve its social, governance and environmental performance. The Plan reflects the Group identity, mission and role as a publisher in society.

“Teachers are fundamental interlocutors for the Mondadori Group, which has always supported the spread of equitable and inclusive quality education, offering opportunities for reading and growth, entertainment and learning,” said Gian Luca Pulvirenti, CEO Mondadori Libri area Education. “Through our publishing houses, we support teachers, from primary schools to universities, with innovative, accessible content and teaching aids designed to contribute to the growth of the new generations; this is why we think that listening to the needs and expectations of the protagonists of our schools is a valuable opportunity for us to enhance and pursue the strategic and sustainable development of our activities,” added Pulvirenti.

The results of the survey

  • 2% of the teachers who responded to the questionnaire said that “diversity, equity and inclusion” was a priority issue in meeting the expectations of the world of school;
  • in second place was “promotion of reading and socio-cultural growth” (54.3%) through local action and educational initiatives in bookstores and schools;
  • of the 15 issues suggested, third place was taken by “management of environmental impacts” (51.9%).

The survey also highlighted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) teachers consider of greatest importance, to be valorised in schools today:

  • for more than 40% of the interviewees, guaranteeing inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all (SDG 4) is the priority goal;
  • this is followed by action to combat climate change (SDG 13), for almost one teacher in three.

Many responses underlined the areas of schooling to which greatest attention should be paid in the future:

  • more than one teacher in two (51.1%) indicated the need to adopt innovative teaching practices, in the interests of inclusivity;
  • 7% of the respondents said it was important to have a specific education offer on sustainability issues and the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development;
  • 8% focused attention on initiatives to engage young people in civil society and the introduction of civic education;
  • other areas of great interest are action to combat early school-leaving and promotion of initiatives to foster gender equality.

The initiatives of our publishing houses
These questions are examined on a daily basis not only through the content of school textbooks, but also through initiatives organised by the Mondadori Group for teachers and students, such as the launch of the Manifesto for gender equality and plurality by Rizzoli Education, the “#Leparolechesiamo, la scuola che vogliamo” project of Mondadori Education and the “La scuola è” Festival of D Scuola, for teacher training and the whole school community.
The Group also offers innovative tools, including: HUB Scuola, the integrated digital teaching platform of Mondadori Education and Rizzoli Education, with inclusive content for management of all educational needs; the many resources and activities of the Deascuola platform, including the brand new Deaflix inclusive learning service for all the basic topics of the main school subjects; on-going development of innovative user assistance services.

Wrap up a book, gift a future

Oxfam Italia and Mondadori Store join forces at Christmas to guarantee an inclusive education for everyone

Donations may be made at Mondadori bookstores throughout Italy

Guarantee an inclusive education for everyone: this is the goal Oxfam is setting out to achieve together with Mondadori Store through the new Christmas project “Wrap up a book, gift a future”.

The initiative marks the start of a partnership that will continue over the coming years, with Mondadori Store and Oxfam joining up for the first time on activities intended to help the most vulnerable members of society.

A concrete commitment from Italy’s leading bookstore network to contribute to the education of children and adolescents living in difficult social environments. Oxfam has been engaged in programs to combat education poverty for more than 20 years in Italy and around the world.

This Christmas, Oxfam’s work to help the weaker members of society can be supported with the “Wrap up a book, gift a future” project: until 24 December it will be possible to have Christmas presents wrapped by one of the more than 100 Oxfam volunteers at the 73 Mondadori bookstores taking part in the initiative in the main Italian cities.

With a small donation, a contribution can be made to the Oxfam and Mondadori Store program to guarantee equality and equal opportunities for scholastic success for students in difficulties, so helping children and adolescents currently at risk of exclusion from education in Italy.

Donations to the project may also be made online, through the special Oxfam page on oxfam.it/mondadorif.

Since the pandemic began, Oxfam has intensified its work in favour of thousands of students and teachers, to fight scholastic dispersion and poor education by improving access to socio-educational services for families in financial difficulties. An inclusive intervention – implemented together with junior and senior high schools, local authorities, universities, foundations and organisations in the voluntary sector – which has generated training initiatives and support for teachers and parents; laboratories and remedial courses to help students who have fallen behind in the last very difficult academic year; educational and play activities in parks in Italian suburbs hardest hit by the social unease generated by the pandemic.

The pandemic has affected everyone, but in different ways. Kids who were already experiencing difficulties have suffered the most, falling behind and lacking the means to react to the severe impact of the emergency. We’re thinking about children who don’t have the tools to follow online lessons, above all about a generation we don’t want to lose and need to put back on an equal footing as soon as possible,” said Roberto Barbieri, general manager of Oxfam Italia. “In Italy, even before the pandemic, 10 million people lacked the resources to resist the emergency. So we need to make every possible effort, starting with schools and students, to prevent kids from leaving school early, which is the first step towards definitive social exclusion. Thanks to the work of the Community Centres we have already reached thousands of people since the pandemic began, but there is still a great deal to do and we have to do it together. With Mondadori Store we shall be even more effective in helping kids not to give up on their future.

Every day through our bookstores across the country we work to promote and spread cultural values, which are the bedrock for the growth of the individual and community cohesion,” said Mondadori Retail CEO Carmine Perna. “With the launch of this important cooperation agreement with Oxfam, we shall be at the side of people who risk exclusion, bringing our commitment to support education: thanks to the work of the volunteers and the awareness of our customers, we can certainly make a difference in creating new prospects and a more inclusive future for children and adolescents.”

 

About Oxfam
Oxfam is a global movement of people who fight inequality to overcome poverty in more than 60 countries. It saves and rebuilds lives in emergencies, promotes sustainable development and works to build a future without inequality where essential rights are guaranteed for everyone, everywhere, and no one is left behind.

About Mondadori Store
Mondadori Store is the largest network of bookstores in Italy: a cultural organisation active across the country through more than 500 stores in large cities and small towns alike, and online through the e-commerce website Mondadoristore.it and the bookclub formula. In addition to books, its core offer, it organises entertainment experiences, events and multi-channel services, reaching more than 20 million customers every year.

 

 

 

“Leggere ci fa crescere”: Mondadori Store launches a wellbeing and environmental campaign

From 1 to 17 October events with authors and experts, an exclusive book oh healthy diets and lots of good green ideas

Mental and physical wellbeing, the promotion of sustainable lifestyles and care for the environment are the focus of a series of special Mondadori Store initiatives that will take place in the bookstores around Italy, on Mondadoristore.it and its social media channels from 1 to 17 October.

For the entire period, Mondadori Store will present a rich programme of events with authors and experts, tutorials and social columns with ideas and advice for their health and that of the environment and launches an exclusive at the bookstores.

Among the personalities who will meet the public live on the Mondadori Store Facebook and Instagram channels: the green influencer Camilla Mendini, alias Carotilla, author of (Im)perfetto sostenibile. Gesti quotidiani per una sostenibilità alla portata di tutti ((In)perfectly sustainable: Daily gestures for sustainability within everyone’s reach), on 6 October at 6.30 pm; Paolo Borzacchiello, expert in linguistic intelligence and author of Basta dirlo. Le parole da scegliere e le parole da evitare per una vita felice (Just say it. The words to choose and the words to avoid for a happy life), on 11 October at 6 pm; the psychologist and travel journalist Giulia Lamarca, author of Prometto che ti darò il mondo (I promise that I will give you the world), on October 12 at 6 pm. The travel TikToker Giovanni Arena will present his new book Benvenuti in economy class (Welcome to economy class) on October 5 at 6 pm, at the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo in Milan.

Also, every day, new ideas for concrete actions with the social snapshots by popular scientist Mariagiovanna Luini, nutritionist Silvia Goggi, economist Luciano Canova, forests and wildlife expert Daniele Zovi and many others. The full programme is available on Mondadoristore.it.

Plus, Mondadori Store is launching a new title in the bookstore: Cucina green. Ricette buone e genuine per una vita in sintonia con l’ambiente (Green kitchen. Good and genuine recipes for a life in harmony with the environment) is a new cooking and wellness manual created with exclusive contributions by Mondadori authors, readers and booksellers, which offers an answer to two issues that are deeply felt and requested in these years. On the one hand, increasing attention to the nutritional value of food, with a preference for the choice of natural and seasonal ingredients, and, on the other hand, greater sensitivity to environmental problems and the waste of both food and resources: 250 pages with recipes for all seasons, with a range of useful tips for tasty zero km dishes, to minimise the impact on the environment. This previously unpublished volume will be on sale from 1 October in Mondadori bookstores and on the website Mondadoristore.it at the special price of €2.90.

At all the points of sale and on Mondadoristore.it, readers can also find all the latest and greenest news: essays, novels and short stories to help the earth, books and fairy tales dedicated to the little guardians of the planet, manuals for all-round well-being, from physical activities to food, gift ideas in recycled paper and much more.

Mondadori Store has also signed up to “Più raccogli, più semini” (“The more you collect, the more you sow”), the project promoted by Payback with Treedom which transforms the promotional points that readers accumulate with their purchases in the bookstore into trees, and thereby contributing to the planting of 3,000 trees.

The new Mondadori Store initiative will be accompanied by a communication campaign developed by the agency Canali&C. with the claim “Leggere ci fa crescere” “Reading makes us grow”, activities in all the stores, national radio and press, the web, social media and DEM.

A book for every patient

Throughout 2021, patients at the Policlinico Sant’Orsola in Bologna will receive a book, as part of an initiative by the Fondazione Sant’Orsola

In 2021, everyone hospitalised at the Sant’Orsola will receive the gift of a book. A companion to help them get through difficult days and discover something new. This is the Fondazione Sant’Orsola project for 2021. An idea that stemmed from the voluntary work of the non-profit organisation and was developed together with Coop Alleanza 3.0 consultant Romano Montroni, chair of the scientific committee of the Centro per il Libro e la Lettura.

The initiative was made possible thanks to the generosity of three sponsors – BPER Banca, the Unipol Group and UniSalute – and the kindness of the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group, who agreed to print 24,000 volumes. Three books have been published: Jane Austen, Emma; Jack London, Martin Eden; Cesare Pavese, La casa in collina. Three classics, three books to read and re-read.

The project was also supported by the Centro per il libro e la lettura, an autonomous body of the Italian Ministry for Culture, and will be endorsed by author Gianrico Carofiglio, who has recognised the importance of the initiative, the first of its kind in Italy.

As soon as the health emergency has ended and the wards are re-opened, the volunteers of the Fondazione Sant’Orsola will present the books to the patients. Until then, distribution will be organised with the assistance of the clinic’s nursing staff, who will ask incoming patients to choose one of the three books when they are assigned a bed. The Fondazione Sant’Orsola website will host a virtual community of readers, where views on the three books and other reading material can be shared.

“Books are essential to a person’s development,” explains the president of Fondazione Sant’Orsola, Giacomo Faldella, “but also to their well-being: some patients bring a book with them, and they see it as a life jacket before making a crossing on a stormy sea; or, more simply perhaps, as a friend to keep them company. However, many patients aren’t in the habit of reading, or for some reason were unable to bring a book with them.”

“In Britain, bibliotherapy has long been a recognised activity,” says Romano Montroni. “The National Health Service has a department set up for the specific purpose of using reading to foster well-being. The relationship between a person’s health and art is also deeply rooted in our own culture; in the early Italian hospitals, like Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, the sick and pilgrims were accommodated and treated in rooms that over the centuries had been decorated by the city’s great painters and sculptors, so the patients were literally “immersed” in beauty. In other words, well-being was regarded in a broad sense, not simply in medical-physical terms.”

“The first thing that someone experiencing a period of difficulty or illness should perhaps try and do is look after themselves,” adds Enrico Selva Coddè, CEO of Einaudi and Mondadori Libri Trade. “It sounds easy, but sometimes it’s impossible. So a simple gesture can help, which is to open a book and absorb yourself in the voice speaking from its pages. A voice dedicated to us, as an indissoluble combination of flesh and imagination. Three classics, because they are like old friends we enjoy seeing again, classics that, as Italo Calvino said, are books people usually say they are ‘re-reading’, not that they are ‘reading’.” Whether it is the wit and irony of Jane Austen, the courage and tenacity of Jack London, the realism and melancholy of Cesare Pavese, these books will certainly help their readers feel less alone.”

Exactly one year ago, Fondazione Sant’Orsola brought together around twenty volunteers – former booksellers, retired teachers, people who love reading – to set up the Libri in corsia project. In just a few weeks, the 1,745 books in the wards had been mapped to create an online catalogue patients could use to request a book located in another ward; the volunteers would then fetch it for them. The pandemic meant that, for reasons of safety, books could no longer be swapped in the hospital. But the Fondazione Sant’Orsola volunteers did not give up: they decided that if books could not be borrowed, they could always be offered as a gift.

This led to the idea being launched today, thanks to the generosity of the sponsors and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group. An idea that the Fondazione Sant’Orsola volunteers have decided to take a step further with a new project Provo a dirlo con un libro. The Sant’Orsola website today has a catalogue of more than 250 books reviewed by the volunteers. Patients can ask for one of the books, or for one of the titles that have not yet been reviewed, and the volunteers will get it to them within 24 hours. Meanwhile, everyone can post comments and reviews on the catalogue, to build up the online community of readers.
22 June 2021

Sperling & Kupfer launches the first sustainability podcast produced by a publishing house: Senza perdere il filo. Narratori di mondi possibili

Sperling & Kupfer today launches the podcast Senza perdere il filo. Narratori di mondi possibili on the main audio platforms. This is the first podcast produced by a publishing house with original content created ad hoc by authors with the Mondadori Group’s publishing houses.

The theme of the podcast is sustainability. Developed from an idea by Linda Poncetta, a fiction editor at Sperling & Kupfer, and Grazia Rusticali, chief fiction editor at Sperling & Kupfer and Piemme, the project is part of the eleventh edition of the international Nudge Global Impact Challenge.

People who tell stories create new worlds, or show us the world in which we live in a different light, suggesting ways it could be improved. With their stories, the protagonists of this podcast stimulate reflection on a new beginning, an opportunity to imagine a different future after Covid. Because there is an answer to the change we are looking for: a more sustainable world, a future where we respect ourselves, other people and the environment around us.

From high-quality teaching to gender equality, from the fight against climate change to the value of diversity:  Senza perdere il filo is a podcast that examines the past, recounts the present and imagines the future, through contributions from 7 authors, who talk about every aspect of sustainability.

Each episode is inspired by one of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The authors who took part are Sara Rattaro (Le parole cambiano il mondo; storytelling and creative writing), Claudio Pelizzeni (Consigli per viaggiare sostenibile), Federica Gasbarro (Le parole insegnano, gli esempi trascinano; climate change), Guido Marangoni (Uguali e diversi; diversity and inclusion), Francesca Vecchioni (È l’uomo misura di tutte le cose?; gender equality), Andrea Maggi (Lezioni per un futuro sostenibile; high-quality teaching) and Annalisa Monfreda (Quell’intreccio prezioso di vita e lavoro; smart working and the future of work).
The podcast is available free on: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Amazon Music. The first three episodes are currently available; the next two will be published on 17 May and the last two on 24 May. The Senza perdere il filo series is produced by Sperling & Kupfer with the editorial supervision of Linda Poncetta. Sound design and realisation is by Luca Carano.
https://www.spreaker.com/show/senza-perdere-il-filo
The project stems from the Mondadori Group’s participation in the Nudge Global Impact Challenge, an eight-month personal development program concentrating on leadership and sustainability, for young professionals from all over the world. During the program the ninety participants have the chance to develop an idea with a positive impact for a more sustainable world.

For more than 110 years, the mission of the Mondadori Group has been to foster the circulation of culture and ideas, through a high-profile leisure offer for the widest possible public. A leading player on the book market and Italy’s primary multimedia publisher, Mondadori has embraced a social responsibility path that, through all its channels, promotes quality content highlighting sustainability, plurality of thought, inclusion and diversity, with an approach geared to innovation.

Mondadori’s commitment takes the form of activities to support the communities where the group operates: promotion of reading, education, training and social and healthcare assistance. The group has also implemented a range of initiatives to reduce the environmental footprint of its offices and bookstores, which have led to a significant reduction in carbon emissions and increased use of certified paper for the production of books and magazines.

Focus presents the new Academy and webinars dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030

A full house for the first three digital workshops of the Focus Junior Academy 2021

Focus, the Mondadori Group brand, leader in popular science and a point of reference for science and current affairs, is launching new initiatives for students, teachers and users in 2021.

Next month sees the launch of Focus Academy, a new project by Focus and Focus Storia aimed at attracting kids from second level high schools to science and history with online training activities, in line with the alternating school/work programmes outlined in the relevant convention.

At the heart of this year’s programme are the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030, a 360° awareness building plan that will involve the magazine, with special detailed coverage, the web, with the multimedia content of Focus.it, and, from February, a series of monthly webinars open to all with scientists and experts, to stimulate debate and develop awareness among the young about the actions necessary for our future and based around six issues identified by the editorial team: the risks to biodiversity; health; discrepancies in the distribution of energy; more sustainable cities; food for all; the risks to oceans; climate change.

“For Focus adopting the UN goals is only natural, given that they are about saving our planet, scientific and technological development, and the quality of human life,” explained Raffaele Leoneeditor of Focus and Focus Storia. “The issues we have selected are part of the magazine’s DNA given our long-standing support for environmental sustainability, medical and technological research and the protection of biodiversity. That all of this coincides with the launch of the Academy is an added value. Kids are extremely aware of these issues. Indeed, they are an authentic driving force for governments and research. They expect that we adults commit to reducing our environmental impact and outline new ways of pursuing these aims. To discuss these issues with them will provide an added stimulus also for us.”

The classes that enrol at the Academy will connect once a week, for four weeks, with the editorial teams of Focus and Focus Storia, to experience, live, the creation of a popular science and history magazine. The students will be actively involved and will have the opportunity to try writing articles or conducting interviews that will then be selected by the team for eventual publication in subsequent issues of Focus.

Also Focus Junior, the brand for children between the ages of 8 and 12 who want to have fun discovering the world in a new and intelligent way, has adopted the UN Agenda by proposing for the Focus Junior Academy digital workshops dedicated to eight of the 2030 goals: health and wellbeing; quality education; clean and accessible energy; industry, innovation and infrastructure; sustainable cities and communities; underwater life; life on earth; and the partnership for goals.

The project, now in its third year, is designed to provide additional tools to assist the syllabus of primary and middle schools, in line also with recent directives which from this year include inter-disciplinary civic education. During the encounters, pupils will work in class on a detailed multimedia journalistic project with the editorial team that will be published on the Focus Junior web site and magazine. The January, February and March appointments of the Focus Junior Academy are already fully booked, with the participation of more than 150 pupils for each workshop.

Finally, for teachers, a series of webinars and monographs have been put together by Focus Scuola, the monthly magazine that supports primary and middle school teachers with the best teaching advice and suggestions to look more closely at the issues related to the UN Agenda 2030 and innovative teaching practices, though ideas, and best practice from experts in the sector.

“In this period of great uncertainty and social upheaval, Focus Junior has decided to reinforce its role in support of children and early teens in an effort to accompany them in their progress towards being future citizens,” said Sarah Pozzoli, editor of Focus Junior and Focus Scuola. “Our objective has become that of trying to ensure that education goes beyond knowledge and skills and is a method for creating a new forma mentis in order to imagine a more sustainable world, that is also more peaceful and free of social, gender and racial discrimination, in line with the guidelines of the UN’s Agenda 2030. And we will do this in our usual style and learning-by-doing approach, while stimulating curiosity and a sense of irony.”

This is how the Focus system is further reinforcing its offer in the education sector: from collaboration with institutions and companies, to school-based projects involving students, families, schools and teachers, and successfully developing activities and events that speak directly to the protagonists of the world of education thanks to an innovative and engaging didactic vision.
Focus is Italy’s most widely read magazine, with a total audience of 7 million readers and users (Source: Nielsen media impact data fusion, April 2020) and 2.9 million followers on social media channels (Source: Shareablee, November 2020).
Focus Junior is a point of reference in the world of kids, with an average monthly circulation of 100,000 copies (Source: Ads, Jan-Sep 2020), 589,000 unique users per month on its web site (Source: Audiweb, Jan-Oct 2020) and a community of 140,000 fans on social media (Source: Shareablee, November 2020).

 

For information and enrolments:

https://www.focus.it/education/academy/focus-academy-n

https://www.focusjunior.it/progetti-scuola-primaria/focus-junior-academy-scuola-di-giornalismo-con-focus-junior/

Happy Holidays from #NoiDellaMondadori

Happy Holidays from #NoiDellaMondadori.

On the occasion of these holidays, Mondadori Group supports Pane quotidiano, an association that since 1898 has been working alongside the neediest people, providing basic food supplies: every day, free of charge, to those in poverty and vulnerability, without discrimination of any kind.

On the occasion of the Environment and the Oceans Days, Grazia presents a special Issue ‘Non dimentichiamoci del Pianeta’

Il magazine ha chiamato a raccolta esperti e attivisti per ricordare che il surriscaldamento globale è una battaglia che non può essere rimandata

Grazia, il magazine del Gruppo Mondadori diretto da Silvia Grilli, da sempre portavoce di temi di attualità, lancia il numero speciale dal titolo Non dimentichiamoci del pianeta. Un numero in cui Grazia ha chiamato a raccolta esperti e attivisti affinché la battaglia e l’impegno contro il surriscaldamento globale non passino in secondo piano, dopo che il Covid-19 ha costretto tutti gli Stati a rivedere le loro priorità.

“Durante la quarantena abbiamo visto la natura ripren­dere i suoi spazi, i cieli ritornare tersi, gli animali circolare in città, i parchi diventare rigogliosi, il mare improvvisamente cristallino. L’assenza di traffico ha aiutato il taglio delle emissioni ma, con la fase 2, le macchine hanno ripopolato le nostre città, la plastica di mascherine e guanti riaffollato l’ambiente e il monouso tanto sotto accusa prima del Covid-19 è ritornato ora la regola. Il 5 giugno è la Giornata mondiale dell’Ambiente e l’8 quella degli Oceani, dedicata ai mari minacciati dalla plastica e dall’inquinamento. Noi di Grazia abbiamo colto le ricorrenze per creare questo numero speciale e ricordare ai leader mondiali l’impegno di proteggere l’ambiente”, ha dichiarato il direttore Silvia Grilli.

Tra le tante interviste in questo numero speciale i lettori troveranno l’opinione di Greta Thunberg, l’ecoattivista che ha portato il mondo in piazza per chiedere misure urgenti per l’ambiente. Poi l’emergenza sanitaria ha rallentato la sua campagna e lei stessa si è ammalata. Ora, però, la 17enne svedese è pronta per la sua nuova sfida: «Surriscaldamento globale e Covid», dice a Grazia «sono due crisi che devono essere gestite insieme».

Solo nel prossimo mese nel mondo verranno usati almeno mezzo miliardo di guanti monouso e un miliardo di mascherine. Una quantità di plastica che, se non smaltita correttamente, inquinerà città e mari. Esperti e attivisti spiegano al magazine come evitare il danno ecologico.

E ancora il tema dell’eco-femminismo: dalle attiviste africane che piantano alberi alle paladine della Foresta Amazzonica. Perché dove le donne rivendicano i loro diritti anche la protezione dell’ambiente fa un passo avanti.

Grazia accompagnerà le lettrici tra parchi naturali e riserve marine dove l’uomo ha rinunciato a sfruttare il patrimonio naturale: un viaggio nel Corcovado, una piccola Amazzonia nel cuore dell’America Centrale, dove piante e animali vivono in armonia lontani da minacce e inquinamento.

Il magazine racconta in questo numero i nuovi professionisti, figli della rivoluzione ecologica: giovani agricoltori che coltivano grazie a un’app, ingegneri che progettano palazzi capaci di produrre energia invece di consumarla, maghi della matematica che proteggono chi vive nelle aree a rischio studiando il clima.

Trovano spazio anche le creative digitali più influenti, pronte a curare il mondo con un nuovo stile, coloro che usano Instagram per parlare di abiti, cosmetici e cibo sostenibile e lanciano sfide ambientali ai follower.

«Magari non sarò io a cambiare la terra, ma farò di tutto perché ci riesca mio figlio Leo» dice Alessandro Gassmann Grazia. Lo abbiamo visto fare la raccolta differenziata, pulire le strade di Roma e lanciare appelli contro chi sottovaluta i disastri ambientali. L’attore si confida con il settimanale cercando di fare un bilancio al termine di questo periodo di lockdown con uno sguardo ai tempi che verranno.

Milano dovrebbe diventare una città dove ciò che serve sia raggiungibile in meno di 15 minuti, con quartieri organizzati come piccole metropoli e nuovi modi di vivere gli spazi aperti. Il sindaco Giuseppe Sala parla a Grazia delle trasformazioni, tecnologiche ed ecologiche, necessarie all’indomani della pandemia. E spiega perché ha dedicato un libro ai cittadini che con le loro azioni cambiano il mondo in meglio.

Anche Sylvia Earle, pioniera delle oceanografe lancia il suo messaggio e a Grazia dice: «La Terra ha infinite risorse: se smettiamo di abusarne, si riprenderà».  Così come Joaquin Phoenix, attore premio Oscar e anche eco attivista che non si ferma mai. Durante l’emergenza coronavirus ha distribuito pasti vegani, chiesto di adottare mucche e denunciato gli allevamenti intensivi e i mercati di carne. «Perché la vita di ogni essere vivente», dice, «è connessa a quella di tutta la Terra.

In questo numero speciale non mancano moda e bellezza Eco: un servizio dedicato ai capi naturali scattato al Giardino botanico di Adelaide in Australia e una rubrica con gli accessori realizzati con la paglia, corda e  tela. La sezione della bellezza suggerisce alle lettrici i prodotti che tengono conto dell’ambiente sulla base di studi e progetti a salvaguardia di coltivazioni e specie in pericolo.

Grazia from tomorrow on newsstands with a special #Facciamocisentire

The magazine has lauched a campaign to promote women's rights under threat from the emergency

Lots of interviews, contributions and first-hand accounts with and from influential personalities such as Emma Bonino, Giovanna Botteri, Elena Bonetti, Anna Foglietta, Rose McGowan, Annalena Benini and many more

Grazia, the magazine edited by Silvia Grilli, has developed a series of initiatives to support all those women who before, after and during the lockdown have taken on professional and family commitments and now risk being left out of the labour market. And it is to these topics that Grazia has dedicated an extraordinary issue #Facciamocisentire – on newsstands from tomorrow Thursday 21 May – and a campaign launched on social media to ensure that he current health and economic emergency does not undermine women’s rights.

“Let’s be honest: women are not angels. Though this is how we have been figuratively represented and depicted during the lockdown. Angels of the hearth, while we hold the family together, angels in hospitals where we make up 80% of health workers; angels of the supermarket, where we continue to comprise the majority of workers. And whiles these so-called ‘angels’ continued to work outside or at a distance, sacrificing themselves with children, husbands, aging parents, government-appointed task forces – made up only of men – forgot about us.  Because you can’t re-open Italy while keeping the schools closed. You can’t hold back female employment giving to women the role of assistance for the country. We mustn’t let the crisis become an excuse for depriving us of the rights that have been won with such difficulty. Let’s fight to honour our ambitions and liberate our dreams. We mustn’t continue to ask women to give up a part of themselves. From a great crisis it is possible to ensure that a greater awareness is born along with a country where there is more equality between men and women,” declared Silvia Grilli in her editorial.

In the special issue #Facciamocisentire (Let’s Make Ourselves Heard) Grazia has brought together first-hand stories and suggestions from readers on how to create a more equal school system; how to encourage girls and young women who too often withdraw from the competition for fear of making mistakes, how to bring up a female generation that sees power as something positive. And it also tries to understand how to involve Italian men in all this. Because women will win this battle only by convincing everyone that the sharing of duties and power between the sexes will be of benefit to men, women and the good of the country.

This is also what Senator Emma Bonino thinks, and she tells Grazia about how many women during the lockdown had to live with aggressive partners, but only a few asked for help and some lost their lives. The emergency, the Senator tells the magazine, risks silencing rights that were acquired only after years of battles. To avoid this, we need a cultural revolution that also involves and includes men.

International studies confirm that the gender gap in our country is widening. The Minster for Equal Opportunities, Elena Bonetti, explains how we can build a better society starting from the family, school textbooks and the labour market.

Grazia also publishes an account by journalist and writer Annalena Benini, who writes about the way in which the lockdown has unmasked a misapprehension:  women, brought up to be generous, doubled down with home and children. Men, whenever they tried, seemed like heroes. But the disparity between such efforts, the journalist explains, should open our eyes. Because women should now have the courage to present the bill.

In the pages of the special issue #Facciamocisentire there is also the voice of Rose McGowan, one of the first to accuse American film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse. She had to sell everything, including her home, to pay for her lawyers. But the courage of this actress led to a movement that has revolutionised the world. Now she has produced an album of music to help people overcome their fears, including those concerning the pandemic. “Since I put myself out there,” she explained to Grazia, “I have learned that it is during crises that we can reconfigure our existence.”

Another woman who has been much talked about as a result of being the subject of sexist insults is Giovanna Botteri, the RAI correspondent in Beijing. She tells Grazia about her experience among the courageous women of Sarajevo, among small children under bombardment in Baghdad, in the America of Obama and Trump, and in China in the time of coronavirus. And why, as she writes, she prefers to ignore the looks of disapproval and go straight to where life is flowing more energetically.

During the pandemic actress Anna Foglietta rolled up her sleeves, oversaw her three children as the played and did their homework and saved her husband who was working from home for any inconvenience and disturbance. She did it because it came naturally, then she realised how much it was taken for granted that this is what she should do. And in her diary for Grazia she explains how it is only when tasks in the home are shred that a woman can claim to be free to be herself.

Behind the name Claire Fontaine is a couple that loves to be provocative and make us reflect on equality between the sexes. Like when, in Paris, they installed feminist slogans during an important fashion show. Grazia asked them to imagine how artists could change the relationship between men and women. While also the designers featured in the Architecture Biennale 2020 try to imagine the future of homes with and after Covid-19.

The economist Veronica De Romanis explains to Grazia why our country, in order to restart, has desperate need of quotas to put the right women in command.  During the emergency women worked from home, took care of families and suffered the closure of the schools. But were excluded from the decision-making process.

The magazine also spoke to some leading female scientific researchers: “Often we just wait for others to recognise our qualities. But now we want to make ourselves heard,” they say after the inclusion of six female scientists on the government’s emergency coronavirus task force.

In Italy fathers are changing and are more involved than before. But male power remains dominant. Why is that? Psychiatrist Paolo Crepet tells Grazia about a country in which the army is made up of women, but the generals are all men. And explains that if we really had a meritocracy, we would need much more than ‘pink’ quotas.

The special will also go ‘viral’, trought a Digital PR campaign with the hashtag #FacciamociSentire.

Focus Junior for schools

Every day on the web site and on social networks background materials and workshops for kids

Focus Junior, the Mondadori Group magazine that is a point of reference in the world of kids, has launch a daily programme of content to support and entertain children kept away from school by the current health emergency.

Science, history, technology, fun and games: every day on the web site www.focusjunior.it – which reaches an audience of over 500,000 unique users every month (Source: Audiweb, January 2020) – and the Facebook and Instagram social network channels, Focus Junior offers a range of background materials, creative activities and brand new experiments, in line with the brand’s characteristic edutainment philosophy, which aims to stimulate and engage children while having fun.

Like a real day at school, starting at 9 in the morning, with news and the facts of the day, continuing at 11 am with revision of the rules of mathematics and grammar.

At 1 pm and then at 7 pm, background materials in Italian, maths, history, science, with a wealth of curiosities to discover.

At 4 pm, it’s time for creativity with special workshops: videos led by Focus Junior experts, with a range of ideas for things to try at home to exploit manual skills and learn new things, from Harry Potter’s magic potion, which involves chemical reactions, to the construction of a video projector to recreate a little cinema in your bedroom, and much more.

The kids are also invited to talk about their daily activities at home on video, a selection of which will be posted each day on the Instagram profile of Focus Junior.