It all took place at the UnConference organized by UniCredit Foundation, an event designed to connect and encourage dialogue among European associations that, also thanks to the Foundation’s support and funding, carry out initiatives aimed at school-age youth. The event provided participants with an opportunity to share ideas, strategies, and experiences among organizations united by the same mission: putting students back at the center and expanding their educational opportunities, because education remains the most powerful tool for reducing inequalities and building a fairer and more equitable future for all.
The UnConference deliberately shifted the focus beyond the center of the frame, toward what usually remains at the margins, those contexts where educational systems creak and where inequality emerges most clearly. But the margins are also, as Bell Hooks reminded us, “radical spaces of possibility,” places of resistance from which to better understand the present and imagine possible alternatives. And it is precisely from here that UniCredit Foundation chose to begin, introducing a topic rarely addressed in the relationship between donors and funded organizations: failure.
The idea of dedicating space to this reflection stems from the belief that an authentic relationship with organizations working in the field, one based on mutual trust, can only be built when there is the freedom to share not only what works but also what is not going as planned. In this perspective, data collection and monitoring are not seen as control tools but as tools for understanding, meant to help everyone, funder and partners alike, interpret the complexity of educational interventions together.
Within this framework, a new awareness emerges: the real resource is the community. A network made up of schools, practitioners, organizations, and people who, at every level and on a daily basis, act within their territories, transforming challenges into opportunities for openness and growth. It is a community in which the Foundation is not an external observer but an active player responsible for its growth. “This UnConference was born from the desire to reflect together on what often remains at the margins of success stories: the fragilities, the struggles, and also the failures of those who work to create change. We believe that failure is not a setback but the beginning of a dialogue,” said Silvia Cappellini, General Manager of UniCredit Foundation.
The event unfolded through moments of leisure, group activities, and five working groups, each dedicated to a different fault line in the European education system. Participants discussed institutional fragility, questioning what happens when schools show dysfunctions or inertia and how organizations try to fill those gaps by stitching together, compensating for, or transforming the context.
They also confronted educational failures, honestly analyzing projects that did not reach students and reflecting on the causes and lessons to be learned. Another group focused on the most vulnerable communities, those territories marked by isolation and distrust where support often fails to arrive, yet where spaces for intervention and possibility still exist. A further discussion explored the loneliness experienced by social workers, highlighting the emotional and professional weight carried by those who work daily with vulnerability and the need to support those who care for others.
Finally, participants discussed how to build networks through failure, recognizing that sharing difficulties can become the starting point for building stronger alliances, mutual trust, and new forms of collaboration. From this weave of experiences emerged a shared conviction: real change does not come from strictly adhering to a model, often an ideal one, but from shared vulnerability and the courage to face it together.
“It is essential to strengthen the organizations behind these initiatives. We need both the people working in the field and those who make that work possible. Both are essential,” said Simona Costanzo Sow, Head of Academic Partnerships at the UN Staff College and member of the UniCredit Foundation board. Transformation requires solid infrastructure, continuity, and the ability to support over time those who strive every day to change the lives of young Europeans. But it also requires “patience and trust.” And above all, the willingness to accept that “failure is possible.” It is a long journey, made of attempts, setbacks, and new beginnings: step by step, failure after failure, rebirth after rebirth.
The strength of community was also highlighted in the final moment organized by UniCredit Foundation, which involved all participants in a special activity: a choir. Amy Barton, former director of the UniCredit Choir, led participants in a group exercise that symbolically transformed the UnConference into a single voice composed of many different tones. In a choir, it does not matter if you sing off-key, miss a note, or cannot read music. Titles, language, culture, or differences in perspective do not matter. What matters is trusting the person next to you, truly listening, and knowing you can rely on those around you. And perhaps in this imperfect yet shared harmony lies the deepest meaning of the event: building together something that no one could ever create alone.