University of Calgary

Franco's blog

Franco Ruzzuti

Franco Ruzzuti, 20, is a born and raised Calgarian, with a strong Italian background. He attended the Calgary Italian School for 9 years (every Saturday morning), was a Calgary Italian folk dancer for five years and has been involved with numerous activities at Our Lady of Grace Italian Church. Currently Franco is a 3rd year biological sciences student with a focus in cellular molecular and microbial biology at the University of Calgary. Outside of the classroom he is heavily involved and engaged in volunteer programs, projects and activities both on and off campus.

Franco will be blogging while in Rome and once back to Calgary he will continue to write about issues relating to Italian youth living in Canada.

For more information about Franco or the conference, visit:

Post-Conference and Post-Exams!

Submitted by Franco on Tue, 2008-12-23 14:35.

Dec. 18, 2008

It’s Thursday, exams are done and The First Conference for Italian Youth Abroad has been done for almost a week. I thought I would take this time to reflect upon my experience and also talk briefly about what’s happened over the last week as well as future direction.

Returning to Calgary

Submitted by Franco on Tue, 2008-12-23 14:33.

Dec. 14, 2008

I’m back in Calgary.  it’s so nice to be back home! It was a long journey back.

We woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, had breakfast at the hotel and got on a 7 a.m. bus to the airport. Upon arriving to the airport we were found out our plane would be an hour late.  In the end we didn’t take off until 11:20 a.m. The flight was 10 hour long due to strong head winds.

Conference winds to an end

Submitted by Franco on Tue, 2008-12-23 14:31.

Dec. 12, 2008

Friday was the last day of the conference. It was considerably different then the rest of the conference. After arriving to the FAO slightly late, again due to flooding, we entered the Plenary Hall to see it filled with media equipment. The first hour of plenary was broadcast on Rai International (link provided in the last entry). This was such a great experience, for our work to be recorded and presented internationally, so that Italians abroad could see what we had accomplished and hear our ideas.

Links to the coverage

Submitted by Franco on Tue, 2008-12-16 11:15.

December 15, 2008

I wanted to provide some links to coverage of the conference by Rai international. Top three links are all in Italian (I'm sorry), but they cover/summarize the conference, and the bottom link is a link to the Dante Aligheri Society.

Natural disasters-Continued

Submitted by Franco on Tue, 2008-12-16 11:09.

December 11, 2008

I’ll begin elaboration by exploring the conference in significantly more detail then mentioned before. The idea/notion of this conference was sparked in 1993 and solid plans began to emerge in 1998. Since then member recruitment, planning and organizing of the conference began within parliament as well as through the CGIE and Com.It.Es. During this time a considerable amount of research was performed. This conference, being the FIRST of its kind, took off after the First International Conference for Italians Abroad in 2000.

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