“I was the only one in my class with a foreign background, and often the only girl truly passionate about science subjects. I felt alone. This project gave me an extraordinary opportunity,” she says, “not only to learn, but to come out of my shell.”
She is one of thirty-five students from Lombardy (and as many from Campania) who, thanks to the UniCredit Foundation and Fondazione Don Gino Rigoldi program, were able to enroll at university with a three-year scholarship worth a total of 15,000 euros. Many of them come from technical or vocational schools, often from families with low incomes. Stories balanced between giving up and finding a way forward. Young people who, without concrete support, a tutor, or someone to guide them, would have found it difficult to continue their studies.
The program — called Uni.On Light Up Your Future — was created to reward merit and motivation, but above all to remove obstacles and build opportunities within a community environment that would strengthen any teenager. Not just a financial grant, but a journey. An 80-hour Winter School on mathematics, science, and logic; continuous tutoring throughout the first year (with Marina Cattaneo at the forefront and coordinator Marta Bianchi overseeing the program); and opportunities for exchange that turn the class into a small community. This is how the gap narrows between those with talent and those able to make it count.
The number of scholarships will increase from 70 to 100, with a total investment of over two million euros and 300 students expected at the next Winter School, announces Silvia Cappellini, General Director of UniCredit Foundation. But the figure is not the only news. “Offering growth opportunities to young people means allowing many to design a different life,” recalls Don Gino Rigoldi. “Financial support is important, but what truly matters is the relationship: helping those who don’t believe they can make it discover that they can.” It’s the quiet force that connects motivation and achievement — the feeling, for many, of finally belonging.
At the University of Milan, Vice-Rector Stefano Simonetta — a medievalist and a man who chooses his words carefully — brings it all back to etymology: universitas means community, togetherness. “The most vital part of it all are the students. Beyond research and teaching, our ‘third mission’ is social impact: building bridges between the small community that is the university and the larger one that is the world.” Within that idea of a bridge, the project finds its moral framework.
That’s where the future truly begins: in the moment someone helps you see that difficulties aren’t barriers, but passages. “In logic, problems are called ‘contradictions.’ And contradictions, as in life, eventually stop being obstacles and become opportunities — when they allow you to surpass yourself and broaden your horizons.” Baba Hanae knows it well: it’s not just about understanding “how things work.” It’s about making them work for everyone.
Article by Elisabetta Andreis for Corriere.it, full text available here (italian version only)