8 August 2013

Yesterday, ATB-INVAP Nursery School was officially opened with a ceremony attended by members of Board of Directors of INVAP (Applied Research Company), authorities of its Staff Association (ATB, in Spanish) and of the Permanent Teacher Training Institute (IFDC, in Spanish) from the town of Bariloche, headmistresses of the Nursery School, members of its Follow-up Committee and its kindergarten Subcommittee, as well as members of INVAP’s staff who have collaborated with this project and parents of children attending the School.

ATB and INVAP have been dreaming of owning an educational facility such as this for many years. Since their headquarters were built, the solid growth of the company in the last years made it a must. With this aim in mind, intensive work was carried out to decide the criteria to be met and to generate a participatory and transparent mechanism of action that could make the project sustainable and become the company’s pride.
It was defined that the guidelines for the project should be a pedagogical approach having as its focus the little children’ rights, and compliance with the specific regulations regarding this kind of activity. Besides, the physical space was designed taking into account not only the local ordinances that regulate this issue, but also UNICEF’s related documents and the pedagogical approach of Reggio Emilia, who has defined the physical environment as a third kind of educator. The Permanent Teacher Training Institute, as well as kindergartens belonging to the Bariloche Atomic Centre (CAB, in Spanish) and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA, in Spanish), all of them from Bariloche, provided their technical advice, assistance and experience.
The selection of the concessionaire was made through public tender. Bidders had to submit their educational, welfare and commercial projects among which the concessionaire was to be chosen. The winning project passed the different stages of the evaluation established by the company as necessary steps to reach a conclusion.
The Board of Directors approved the project at the appropriate time so that the ATB-INVAP Nursery School opened up for the staff’s children aged between 45 days and 2 years on 13th May 2013. Thanks to the collaboration between INVAP and its Staff Association, that day children could attend the institution for the first time. The unselfish contribution made by the architect Patricia Piñero, and the medical care firm MEDIFÉ from Bariloche are also worth mentioning.

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Video: The News on Local Channel 6.