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Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility at Testbusters
Corporate social responsibility is an issue we genuinely care about, and a sense of social responsibility has been part of TestBusters' DNA from the very beginning.
We have always tried to set up our activities taking into account the fairness of processes and with a critical eye, particularly on people management. Within our community, projects solely aimed at leaving a positive impact have always arisen spontaneously and quietly. So, in 2021, we decided to formalise these initiatives, creating the first social responsibility team.
We firmly believe that companies must play their part to move things forward in an ethical manner.
Areas of intervention
Our corporate social responsibility programme is organised into four main areas: people’s health, support for local communities, clear information and education, and careful selection of partners and projects.
The community
Together with the Milan headquarters, it is the teachers in our community who provide the ideas for new projects, subsequently contributing to their realisation
Information
We always accompany monetary donations with projects aimed at informing and raising awareness. In this way, social responsibility is not resolved in a single gesture, which risks being hasty, but remains linked to a structured and shared memory
We choose with care
We dedicate time to verifying that the entities and people we support are competent and reliable and share the values we believe in
People’s health: prevention and support projects
Health is a core value for Testbusters, as the group was born from a community of doctors and medical students. In our social responsibility projects we look at health from a broad perspective, combining prevention, access to care, mental well-being and support for patients and their families.
AIRC A fundamental part of resolving a health deficit issue is played in many cases by prevention.
From this awareness, the collaboration with AIRC, the Italian Association for Cancer Research, was born in September 2021.
The activities implemented so far in favour of AIRC have been:
- raising awareness among our students regarding the most common tumours, through dedicated presentations;
- raising awareness among buyers of our books: in each of the packages purchased in October, the month dedicated to breast cancer, we inserted the pink ribbon pin;
- monetary donations, which we always try to accompany with informative activities, in order to spread the message as far as possible.
One cannot talk about health while neglecting psychological well-being. For this reason, as a company, we are committed to fighting the stigma, mistrust, and lack of awareness that still surround this topic.
Through an external online platform, we offer those who work for Testbusters, including our entire community of teachers, the opportunity to access psychotherapy courses at a discounted price.
The choice of Serenis was not accidental: we liked their competence, seriousness, and smart approach.
Animenta is a non-profit association dealing with eating disorders.
On the initiative of Stefano and Camilla, two teachers from our community, the association came to tell us about the information work it is carrying out on a topic that, especially in this historical period, is so critical.
Not only are EDs (Eating Disorders) on the rise, but the health system is often unprepared for their treatment, just as most of us lack the cultural tools to deal with them wisely when we encounter them in friends or relatives. For this reason, Animenta's intervention was invaluable. After the meeting, we put the collected material to good use by disseminating it in our courses.
Red Cross
The ideals upon which the Red Cross is founded are particularly akin to those guiding the Testbusters community. For this reason, we decided to support the organisation with these initiatives:
in the wake of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine: donation in favour of the Red Cross in Ukraine and taking a public stance regarding the conflict, via our social channels; fundraising campaigns combined with information campaigns to raise awareness among the community and customers.
The Matchy Matchy event allowed the Testbusters community to inform itself regarding bone marrow donation.
Subsequently, groups of people organised themselves to go and get typed: a simple gesture that can save a life.
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Education and training: scholarships and inclusion
Education is not only our core business but also the main pillar of our social responsibility. Through scholarships, training projects and collaborations with schools and organisations, Testbusters promotes access to quality education for students who might otherwise be excluded.
We place great value on the knowledge and skills acquired through studying. We believe in education understood as a tool for personal growth and for creating equal opportunities within social groups. We dedicate huge resources to the training of our team and we have chosen to bring to life a series of initiatives to support the education of children and adolescents, whom we promote as the driving force of the society of the future
Scholarships
Starting from the year 2021, Testbusters has decided to provide scholarships in favour of its students. The criterion for awarding scholarships is twofold: economic disadvantage and merit.
Merit because we want to reward commitment, ambition and tenacity. Economic disadvantage because we want to contribute to the realisation of conditions of substantial equality, to make the same opportunities accessible to everyone.
Students on our courses who reach the top positions in the ranking will be able to apply for a scholarship worth 500 or 300 euros. Furthermore, in the event that the reference ISEE is below a certain threshold, the student will be entitled to a full refund of the course cost.
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Informative moments during courses
This project was born from our community of teachers, in the city of Florence. In 2022, the teachers decided to use a part of the time available to students by presenting sustainability themes (eating disorders, mental health, medical information, etc.). Through a survey, we collected the level of satisfaction of the students and the feedback was truly positive.
In 2023 we told the whole community about the idea from Florence and today all Testbusters cities can decide to do it, freely introducing new topics for discussion.
Our collaboration with AfCiC was born thanks to Stefano Liguori, a Medicine student, Testbusters teacher and AfCiC volunteer. AfCiC is an NGO based in Thika, a small town in Kenya. In Thika, AfCiC has set up a reception structure for children and adolescents who, rescued from African slums and undignified living conditions, begin an educational or vocational path, so that they can positively reintegrate into society.
These are the activities that Testbusters and AfCiC have done together:
- Every month there is some teacher from the Testbusters community leaving for Thika, in the role of volunteer;
- In 2021, with a donation made by Testbusters, AfCiC sent twenty children to school, providing them with uniforms, teaching materials, payment of school fees and everything necessary;
- In the summer of 2022, we organised a beach volleyball tournament, donating the participation fees to AfCiC;
- At Christmas 2022, we decided to accompany the fundraising with three different activities: a charity auction open to our Milanese community, of objects made by the AfCiC kids; the sale of advent calendars made with the same objects and the organisation of an aperitif;
- Testbusters' communication channels are used to spread content about AfCiC, in order to give visibility to their project.
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Through a three-way partnership with the Fondazione Morandi and the Liceo Paolo Frisi in Monza, we offer students in disadvantaged economic situations a certain number of places to participate in our courses for free. In this case, students are selected by a committee based on two criteria: disadvantaged economic conditions and high motivation.
Manuals in libraries
For two years, we have been taking the surplus print runs of our manuals to libraries. To date, we have distributed 1,872 manuals free of charge to various libraries in more than 30 Italian cities.
We believe that everyone should be able to access our paper manuals by borrowing them for free. Furthermore, we are convinced that distribution in libraries is the best way to offer a second life to our manuals, extending their lifespan and reducing waste of paper and other materials.
Other Testbusters social responsibility projects
Some initiatives go beyond health and education but still reflect the values of Testbusters, such as supporting communities affected by emergencies or local events. When it makes sense, we mobilise our community to act
Floods in Emilia-Romagna
In June 2023, we organised a beach volleyball tournament, donating the entry fees to the Emilia-Romagna Region to tackle the emergency that arose following the floods.
