TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
CARLO BIZZARRI, FOUNDER OF IGNITE ADULT LEARNING CORPORATION, BUILT THE PROGRAM AS A BUSINESS INSTEAD OF A SCHOOL
It’s quite gratifying. They are flying with their own wings. – Carlo Bizzarri
Behind his packed desk in his eclectically cluttered Regina office, Carlo Bizzarri looks like nothing if not a kindly, well-intentioned grandpa as he greets a visitor with a firm handshake and a gentle smile.
As the founder and currently program manager of what is now called Ignite Adult Learning Corporation, Bizzarri has also helped many marginalized young men and women acquire the work ethic and knowledge needed to lift themselves out of the murky backwaters of society and into the bright light of successful careers and lives.
To those admitted into the program, Ignite offers a 40-week course in subjects intended to give the participants what they will need to make themselves attractive candidates for hire in the business world. What they learn can also be useful if at some point they choose to try and start a business of their own.
The unique aspect of Ignite’s approach, one that Bizzarri originated and began refining in the late 1980s, is that it treats its program not so much like school, but as a business.
In fact, he says bluntly, “We are not a school, we are a business.”
This novel approach stems from Bizzarri’s upbringing, and insights gained through many decades of a varied career in what can best be described as social development.
Bizzarri, now 74, was born in 1943 in central Italy during the Second World War and raised with three brothers on a farm.
“My parents were amazing. My family, all of my family. They had a sense of values, like integrity, respect for people, hospitality.
“My father was, among other things, he was great at making wine. And I remember when guests were coming to the farmhouse, they were always offered something to drink, and the drink wasn’t coffee, it was wine, a glass of wine.”
Life during the war was far from hospitable, however. When Bizzarri was still an infant, his family found themselves caught between advancing Allied troops and invading Germans, while partisans were in nearby hills.
The Germans occupied their farmhouse, and they departed for the hills, digging out a cave and staying there until the crisis had passed.
“All kinds of stories I heard from my father — it was terrible,” Bizzarri said.
When the war ended, “there was nothing left, nothing,” he said, but his parents’ values were not shaken.
Some time later, he said, when there was a harvest to bring in, his father — who did not own the land the farm was on — told his older sons to make sure the landowner got the grain to which he was entitled.
“I remember that, because even in poverty, you don’t steal, you have integrity. You work hard. I am very grateful … for those values.”
I remember that, because even in poverty, you don’t steal, you have integrity. You work hard. I am very grateful … for those values. — Bizzarri
Eventually he was sent to a boarding school run on the Jesuit model, where he attained a classical education (a core curriculum of literature, science and philosophy).
“It was tough, because if you didn’t pass, you were out. We would go home for two months of the year. No Christmas or Easter break. But, looking back, I’m extremely happy that I have had that kind of education."
Even though during those years he was away from his family most of the time, “it was nice to have those two months with the family,” he said with a smile. “You knew what actual vacation was like.”
Eventually he attained a bachelor of fine arts at college in Italy, then spent several years studying on a scholarship in the United States.
After that, he lived for 10 years in Ethiopia, doing social development work.
“I opened up a school, up to Grade 8. I opened up a (health) clinic. I had volunteers … two Canadian nurses to run the clinic. And I had a social worker … to run some programs for women and children.”
One of the Canadian nurses he met at the clinic was a young woman from Saskatchewan named Arlene. They fell in love, their contracts in Ethiopia ended, they were married in Italy, and by 1980 they ended up together in Canada, where Arlene had a job at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon.
Bizzarri secured contract work, a situation that continued for most of that decade.
In the late 1980s, the former federal employment and immigration department asked him to put together a program proposal to help jobless youth.
Part of the program was expected to be life skills training. Bizzarri wasn’t sold on that; he told the administrators that what the youths needed was Grade 12, acquired via computer (a fairly new concept at the time).
They ended up with a program that had both Grade 12 and life skills. However, one of the instructors came to Bizzarri and said the participants generally knew the academic material well but were a washout in the life skills part.
That’s when the penny dropped: In their lives to that point, these young people didn’t have any terms of reference regarding what it meant to actually go to work.
Bizzarri’s first thought was to start an actual business involving them, so they could learn hands-on, but that idea didn’t come to pass. A man named Paul Hartung, one of his board members at the time, was executive director of Junior Achievement and he pointed out that in that organization, young people are taught how to set up a business.
Bizzarri took that concept and adapted it.
He had already set up a punch clock, to instil the ideas of responsibility to attend and punctuality. He told the students they were employee apprentices, and their job was to learn.
“I
Sometimes I don’t understand why we as a community don’t understand that young people don’t belong on welfare, that means dependency. And they don’t belong in jail either. — Bizzarri
“I threw away the life skills course,” he said. “In its place, I put in, it’s set up like, you’re an employee now. Therefore, show up for work, show up on time, do the work, follow the rules. So, in other words, rather than teaching them a theory, they were putting it into practice, handson.”
By that point, in 1990, the original version of the present-day organization had been established: Multicultural Enterprises Inc. In 1995, it was renamed Regina Adult Learning Centre Inc., with the program evolving to meet the changing needs of the apprentices.
In January 2012 it was rebranded again with its present name, Ignite Adult Learning Corporation. The new name was meant to reflect the broadening of the scope of the programming, and to expand the effort to seek financial stability and sustainability.
The program has evolved to the present day. Primary requirements to be eligible to qualify (not all who apply are accepted), are that applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 30, are not working full time and did not finish high school.
So, academic upgrading to attain Grade 12 is still an integral part. Other courses include the latest relevant computer, business and communications skills, personal development, driver education, career orientation and finally a job search.
They also go through an extensive process of setting up a mock business, and then winding it down, hopefully at a profit. It gives them an idea of what it takes to succeed if you are self-employed.
As well, because the participants are usually people who are facing significant challenges in their personal lives, the other component is aimed at guiding and supporting them in developing positive personal skills.
These include personal fitness, nutrition, addiction education, parenting skills, positive socialization and productive work.
The financial sustainability of Ignite is an ongoing concern, Bizzarri said.
”For the last eight years, the program has been supported 80 per cent by private sector investors. It’s tough, very tough … Were it not for the private sector, we wouldn’t be here.”
There is some support from the province, but federal funding has been absent for the past year and half, he said.
“We want to bring them back. “Sometimes I don’t understand why we as a community don’t understand that young people don’t belong on welfare, that means dependency. And they don’t belong in jail either,” Bizzarri said forcefully. “They belong in the community, in the marketplace …
“But somehow we put a huge amount of money, especially keeping them in jail; we strip them naked of their dignity, and then we expect them to be able to function.
“The absurdity is so huge!
“Languishing on welfare? These young people don’t want to be given things; they want to have an opportunity that they can sink their teeth into. That’s common sense, really. That’s what we all want.”
Bizzarri said the most inspiring experience for him at Ignite is when former students succeed in the real world.
“When they come back, and they say, ‘I bought a house.’ Or, 10 years later (after completing the program) they send us an email, saying … I’m making (a lot of money), I bought a house, I have my own car, my kids go to school, I have registered them in all kinds of activities.’ And then they say, ‘This is because of you.’
“It’s quite gratifying. They are flying with their own wings."