Childhood does not exist: Carla Rinaldi’s speech at the launch of the Charter on Quality Education

Childhood does not exist.

One year on from the passing of Carla Rinaldi, on 16 April 2025, we choose to remember her through her words.

Words that continue to challenge us, to make us question ourselves, and to ask us, even today, where childhood truly stands in our society.

In her speech at the launch of the Charter “Quality Education, a Global Challenge” (Reggio Emilia, 7 November 2022), Carla Rinaldi invites us to recognise the extraordinary richness of children and our collective responsibility to give them a voice, space and value.

A lucid and necessary perspective, which remains deeply relevant today.

Where is childhood in our society?
Where is the recognition of the educational richness that children have embedded in themselves, and compared to which we, the adults, are the poor ones?

That richness of the first thousand days that we have described with 50 years of documentation and finally demonstrated through neuroscience.

We used to talk about the child’s hypothesis, now it is a reality, but what about the awareness of this wealth?
What about the recognition of that treasure that we continue to keep buried?
How influential is it in our society, if at all?

We feel the urgency to affirm that childhood still - despite everything - doesn't exist with the necessary social and political prominence.

Carla Rinaldi, November 7, 2022  - Launch of the Charter “Quality Education, a Global Challenge”

The full video is available on the Fondazione Reggio Children YouTube channel.