Istituto cultura italiana (NGO)/European solidarity corps/Activities

Typically our projects are composed by media-literacy activities, focusing on themes proposed by the partner organizations and fitted on the interests of volunteers, and by intercultural activities, with attention for writing of articles, reports, interviews, workshops held at other institutions, language exchange clubs, and if possible, cineforum or theatre's events. Here is a brief summary of the activities organized until now! (attention these contents are not updated, please check here for the latest activities)

European Identity between Italy and Georgia (part I)

Media-literacy activities

• WordPress & Elementor Pro: we have created a test site for the Institute exploring all relevant features of Wordpress (like appearance customization, menus, pages' language, etc.) and page's design using Elementor's page builder.

"handmade" sticky navbar, diagonal bands and page effects created with Elementor's Page Builder

Specifically we have explored all built-in widgets of Elementor, and we have added custom javascript to the Ocean-wp theme (one of the themes suitable to Elementor) in order to display a sticky header on top with dynamic shadow – basically we have used a jQuery function to change the class name applied to the top panel on scroll, as below

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {

	$(window).scroll(function() {     
    	var scroll = $(window).scrollTop();

    	if (scroll > 0) {
    	    $(".my-header").addClass("my-header-active");

    	} else {
        	$(".my-header").removeClass("my-header-active");
		}

	});

});

– we have also learned how to create templates of pages and layout elements, in order to "assemble" Wordpress pages using Elementor from a set of predefined and customized layout elements ("templates", indeed)

• we have added a word cloud data visualization widget based on d3.js and we have customized it on the basis of the d3.js APIs in order to create a zoom effect on mouse over single tags (to be completed allowing single tags to act as links targeting articles related to them). See here for an example.

• we have created a simple script using Python and RAKE, activated through Wordpress ("save_post" action) in order to automatically generate a set of tags from a given article and to save them directly in the tags field of wordpress' posts, using the "wp_set_post_tags" function. The rake script creates a list of words completed with scores based on their relevance in a given text and it's based on this example.

• we have created a Nuxt.js website mirroring the test site, at this address, with a more interactive and dynamic interface than Wordpress can offer. Nuxt.js is a framework based on Vue.js, a Javascript framework for creating user interfaces / front-end sites, and it's able to create static pages from Vue.js views.

In this case we have started from this template, and we have connected it to our Wordpress site using Wordpress' REST APIs, and we have customized the template in order to display a left navigation panel, as shown below.

Furthermore, we have added a button to the Wordpress administration panel, in order to activate the Nuxt's (static) pages generator, because each Wordpress post has to be statically saved within Nuxt itself in order to be served by that.

This work, of which the most technical parts have been done by team members of our organization, where volunteers have participated by a non-formal learning approach, on the basis of their interest, has been the requisite for the subsequent mobility and even for the subsequent project, because during the subsequent mobility, volunteers have further filled-in the site with contents, and done some slight changes, and during the subsequent project, learning from the experience of Nuxt.js (and also Wordpress) we have completely revised our tools, and we have shifted to an integration of Quasar framework with Mediawiki ...

Intercultural activities

• During the mobility, besides the above mentioned work, we have arranged interviews with the following local actors:
  • Lasha Kharazi (Ph.D in Philosophy at Tbilisi State University)
  • Paramjeet Berwal (PhD at Institute for European Studies in Tbilisi)
  • Michele R. (computational linguist)
  • Tinatin Tsagareishvili (professor of Italian language at Ilia State University)
  • Irakli Availishvili (physicist and painter)
  • Francisco Capote Yeregui (Chargè d'Affairs ad Interim of Kingdom of Spain in Georgia)
  • Andrea Chmielinski Bigazzi (EU monitoring mission in Georgia) and Don Giuseppe Pellizzari (Catholic priest and English specialist)

for all of them (except the one held with Andrea and Don Giuseppe, upon request of Andrea who preferred keep our conversation confidential) we have written a report on the basis of the meeting's minutes

• we have prepared and held the workshop with title "Borders and frontiers, the past, the present and the future: comparative history and international relations between Italy and Georgia", at:
  • Ilia University, 18th December 2018
  • Sokhumi State University, 21th December 2018
  • Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, 13th March 2019
• we have written the following contents
  • Leisure time of some staff members (2 December 2018)
  • "Analysing the shadows: private tutoring as a descriptor of the Education System in Georgia" (review)
  • "Frozen Conflicts in the Post-Soviet Space: What Will 2019 Bring?" (review)
  • "The Russian Interventions in South Ossetia and Crimea Compared: Military Performance, Legitimacy and Goals" Emmanuel Karagiannis" (review)
  • "Recensione: The Georgia War, Ten Years On" (review)
  • posts about new year's celebration, in Italian and Georgian
  • posts about carnival, in Italian and Georgian
  • posts about crib, in Italian and Georgian

All the contents produced have been created either by volunteers (Gabriele and Mattia) or by volunteers in cooperation with team member, or by team members alone. In all cases the work has been revised by team members of the organization more or less significantly.

• We have held a language exchange club involving the following members of the local community:
  • Marina Puturidze
  • Geof Giacomini
  • Mary-Hellen Chatwin

• We have organized a gathering at our headquarters inviting close friends of the organization and past students. In the first part of the gathering Tommaso, Manana, Mattia and Gabriele delivered a short presentation on the work done and then it followed a refreshment offered by the organization and by Mattia and Gabriele as well.

European Identity between Italy and Georgia (part II)

Media-literacy activities

• We have held a workshop on "Personal Data Protection: a Discussion on Mozilla’s Newsletter 5 To-Know" (26 March 2019) at our organization, followed by a report written from Claudia Palazzo
• We have held a workshop on the article The Genesis of Library Genesis: The Birth of a Global Scholarly Shadow Library followed by a written literary exchange

Intercultural activities

Volunteers have written the following articles:

• South Caucasus Security Forum, based on the corresponding gathering South Caucasus Security Forum (Eleonora)
• Ciné-DOC Tbilisi – International Documentary Film Festival (Claudia)

Volunteers have held the following workshops:

• Georgia-Italy: a bridge between two worlds, at Ilia State University

We have allocated 2 scholarships funded by the Institute and one of the volunteers (Eleonora) took in charge to entertain correspondence between our students and the destination school in Arezzo (Italy), to manage their stay (lessons and accommodation)

• We have held a language exchange club involving the following members of the local community:
  • Marina Puturidze
  • Mary-Hellen Chatwin
  • Gvantsa and Lali Gigauri
  • Maia Maghalashvili
  • Tako Meskhishvili

We have informed Georgian students of studying opportunities at abroad through the following posts, written both in English and Georgian:

• Study in Italy: intensive summer course in the Marche region
• Study engineering in Italy: scholarships available in Torino and Perugia
• Study in Bologna: grants available for BA programmes
• Summer courses in Italy

European-Bridge 2019-2020

Media-literacy activities

The activities have been split in two sides, because both of the volunteers were able to carry out some task in this field. From the one hand, we have explored the Mediawiki eco-system, focusing at first on Wikidata, with the aim to create a database of semantic (and prospectively "linked") data on our organization, and following on Wikisource which is a platform for proofreading and publishing of open-source books (because it was extremely relevant to our field) and on a local installation of Mediawiki.

At the same time, with the other volunteer (Gloria Maritan), still in the field of media-literacy, we have retrieved the work done on Wordpress, doing a general redesign on the basis of a site analysis proposed by the volunteer herself, and then we have tried to shift to our local installation of Mediawiki for all the media-literacy tasks, so that while Tommaso (the project coordinator) and Luca, were exploring Mediawiki and setting-up the general framework, also with the aim to open its use to other organizations as well, Gloria was using Mediawiki to import and test some html (to be used for newsletters), keep up-to-date a calendar of activities created through Visual editor, and doing some maintenance task related to existing articles and material.

During the project we have explored a variety of technologies related to Mediawiki, with special reference to semantic data, ask queries, Leaflet maps, Mediawiki's modules, templates (like the Infobox template) and much, much more.

We have created a page of our organization in perfect "Wikipedia" style, and we have laid the groundwork to implement a platform for connecting all centers of Italian culture and language over the world !! (supposedly)

Tools that we have explored, learned:

• Wikidata, with the aim to create a database of semantic (and prospectively "linked") data on our organization
• Wikisource, with the aim to publish and/or present open-source books
• Mediawiki, used as collaborative platform to manage the work of team members and volunteers
• d3.js, Flourish and other data visualization's tools, with the aim to create data visualization from survey filled-in by students
• Amp, with the aim to create interactive newsletters, specifically newsletters with surveys to be filled-in by students within the email itself
• Semantic MediaWiki, as a more accessible implementation of semantic data, which also allowed us to easily create maps and geo-localization

Material produced:

• Site analysis, 15th November 2‏‎019, by Gloria Maritan
• Design of business card and flyer, by Gloria Maritan
• Christmas' invitation, by Gloria Maritan
• Design proposal for the site "Cultura italiana", by Gloria Maritan
• Set of illustrations for the site "Cultura italiana", by Gloria Maritan
• Survey created with Google Forms and following using Amp, by Gloria Maritan
• HTML templates for newsletters, by Gloria Maritan

All the above mentioned tasks have been carried out by volunteers (or organization members with regard to most technical aspects) through a non-formal learning methodology, under supervision and cooperation of team members

Intercultural activities

We have carried out the following activities:

• Incontro con Irakli Avalishvili, (report), 22th of November 2019, by Luca Speziale

Gathering at headquarters of Veterans of Afghanistan war

Gathering at headquarters of Veterans of Afghanistan war

Vegan cupcakes at "Elacy culinary Georgia"

• Gathering at headquarters of Veterans of Afghanistan war, 29th of November 2019

• Workshop on Library Genesis and unlawful publishing, with written reflections (3rd December 2019)
• Cooking workshop/SERVAS gathering, vegan cupcakes, at Elacy culinary Georgia, 5 December
• Meeting with Don Giuseppe Pellizzari, catholic priest in Georgia and English specialist, he has been Salesian inspector in Russia
• Contenuti sito Wordpress, 13 December (Gloria Maritan), a table with layout texts in English and Italian

• 20th December 2019, informal gathering with close friends of our organization and students, of which this is a short presentation


carissimi, 
durante questo mese e dieci giorni circa
dall'inizio del progetto ESC che ha visto
coinvolti Luca Speziale e Gloria Maritan
assieme al team della nostra organizzazione
(in particolare Tommaso e Manana) abbiamo in particolare
avviato un proficuo scambio linguistico e culturale
nella forma di lezioni di lingua per studenti (discenti)
georgiani (anche se la parola "discente" si estende
naturalmente agli insegnanti, così che i ruoli dell'uno
o degli uni e dell'altro o degli altri sono perfettamente
equivalenti), abbiamo avviato una riflessione (o dialogo
culturale) in relazione a due importanti aspetti della
vita dei giorni nostri, ovvero l'utilizzo dei social
network e la fruizione di banche dati di libri digitali,
abbiamo esplorato la possibilità di diffondere messaggi
di "critica sociale" (o "pensiero critico) da noi concepiti
nella forma di illustrazioni o immagini per la produzione
delle quali stiamo cercando di affinare le nostre abilità
ancora insufficienti ; ed al solito abbiamo svolto un
lavoro di IT (information technology) considerato sia come
la necessaria base o infrastruttura per tutte queste
attività, sia volto alla realizzazione di progetti
teoricamente importanti come una piattaforma che metta
in relazione e coordini i centri di italiano sparsi per
il mondo, ed offra loro importanti strumenti per il
salvataggio, la creazione e la diffusione di dati ed informazioni
con attenzione per l' "interoperabilità" (il fatto che essi
risultino accessibili mediante un ampio ventaglio di siti web e 
piattaforme, inclusi i "social"), il cui presupposto sono
categorie tassologiche accettate dalla "community" wiki a cui
noi stessi siamo incoraggiati a contribuire. [pausa]
Ma una volta sfiorate tali sfere linguistiche mi fermo qui,
e avendo tralasciato alcuni aspetti importanti (come il progetto
già avviato da Luca di interviste di italiani a Tbilisi
quali genuini rappresentanti delle relazioni internazionali
fra i nostri paesi, del programmato laboratorio di lettura 
con cadenza bisettimanale che organizzeremo da Gennaio, etc.)
vi lascio ad alimenti la cui assimilazione non richiede 
alcun particolare impegno o istruzione se non quella relativa
alle buone maniere.

and this is a spreadsheet with food/drink contributions of various participants.

• Why you should do the ESC experience (article), 21 January 2020 by Luca Speziale
• South Caucasian Women Photography-Panel (report), 11th of February 2020, by Gloria Maritan
• Mediawiki: how to install (instructions of use), 8th January 2020, by Luca Speziale
• Resoconto esperienza wiki (article), 22 April 2020, by Luca Speziale
• Esperienza Mediawiki, 27 April 2020, by Luca Speziale
• La lingua italiana nel mondo (article), 21 May 2020, by Luca Speziale
• Transcript of conference "Stati Generali della Lingua italiana nel mondo" (held on 15-21 October 2018, Rome, with title “L’italiano e la rete, le reti per l’Italiano”) 10th July 2020, by Luca Speziale

Enrico Novelli alias "Yambo"

We have held a language exchange club involving the following members of the local community:

• Gvantsa Gigauri
• Maia Maghalashvili
• Rusudan Jguburia
• Kerry Maki

All the written contents produced by volunteers have been revised and/or defined by board members of the organization, and in some cases further elaborated by them, and are the result of a daily work carried out "as a group".