On the 7th of December 2023, in the prestigious venue of the Italian Embassy in London’s Mayfair, an exclusive ceremony was organised to present a host of awards to Italians distinguishing themselves in the field of business and science.
Among the prizes were two Il Circolo 2023 grants (£2,000 each) to be presented to worthy projects dealing with mental health in young people, Il Circolo’s chosen cause for the year.
The honours went to Eleonora Aiello, who is supporting young people as a PhD Candidate at the School of Education, Communication & Society (ECS) of King’s College London. Her PhD looks at Italian upper-secondary students‘ experiences with mental health and well-being within their places of education.
A graduate of the MA Education, Policy & Society at ECS and the Laurea Triennale in Scienze Internazionali e Istituzioni Europee at Università Degli Studi di Milano – La Statale, Eleonora has also worked as an educator in UK mainstream secondary schools where she taught and mentored students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and at safeguarding risk.
Receiving the award, she said: “I am honoured to have been chosen for the Youth Mental Health Award il Circolo Award 2023. I want to thank the donors and scholarship commission for their generosity. Thank you for valuing my experience and commitment to improving youth mental health and wellbeing. Also, thank you for supporting me as a disabled researcher to access academia – where disabled people are under-represented. “
The second awardee was Luisa Fassi. During her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, she attended a two-year research internship in Psychiatry and volunteered in schools for UNICEF weekly. She then attended a master’s degree in Psychological Research at the University of Oxford and a PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, where she is presently working at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and the Department of Psychiatry.
She is currently researching the complex relationship between technology use and youth mental health to answer questions such as “Is there a causal link between social media use and mental health?” and “How can technology be used as a tool for the improvement of youth mental health.’’
Ms Fassi words in accepting the grant were: ““I am deeply honoured and grateful for this award in recognition of my work in the field of youth mental health. Your support reinforces my commitment to positively impacting the lives of young people facing mental health challenges”.
The awards ceremony was preceded by a few words by Simona Spreafico, Il Circolo chairperson, highlighting the reasons behind the choice of ‘’Mental health in young people’’ as the subject for the awards and Il Circolo’s other activities.
One is the participation, with two £1,000 awards, to the ‘’Italy Made Me’’ project. This annual award looks for worthy researchers in the early stages of their careers who are based in the UK and have completed part or all of their studies in Italy. This year the winners were selected by the Scientific Council of the Embassy from a pool of 30 candidates.
The winners that received the award sponsored by Il Circolo were:
Fabio Battaglia, for his study, ‘’To GDP or not to GDP? Identifying the factors promoting and inhibiting the use and impact of well-being metrics in Scotland and Italy.’’
Arianna Gentilini for her study “The role of patient organizations in innovation and access in the rare disease spaces”.
Further awards were presented to the ‘’Talented Young Italians 2023’’ by Alessandro Belluzzo, President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in the UK and Brunello Rosa, President of Talented Young Italians and to a student in Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, by Simona Paravani Mellinghoff.
The ceremony was presided over by the Italian Ambassador in the UK, H.E. Inigo Lambertini and moderated by Prof Roberto Buizza, scientific attache’ of the Italian Embassy. Il Circolo is honoured to have sponsored and participated in such an important event celebrating the achievements of the Italian business and academic Community in the UK.
