On the move, between people and borders: my experience with ASCS in Chile

It is never easy for me to explain who I am, probably because I feel I am constantly moving. I think each person is made up of many stories, experiences, and changes, and it is the differences and encounters with other cultures that fascinate me the most.

My roots and the call of the movement

My name is Daniela. I was born and raised in Milan from Sicilian parents who emigrated in the 1970s. Over time, I learned to understand the importance of my origins: that attachment to a land where you never really lived, but which you feel inside, and a primordial spirit that I probably inherited from my parents, that of the movement. Because yes, since my first trip, though brief, I have not stopped since. So I started to cultivate my greatest passion: meeting other cultures, movement, travel.

A vocation for service: between education and cooperation

In life I am a professional educator. I have worked in different contexts and with different forms of vulnerability, but at the center for me has always been the people and the journey taken together. I can honestly say that I have collected more defeats than victories, but even though it is sometimes difficult and frustrating, I just think about those small steps toward change left along the way.

Over time, I earned a Master’s degree in International Cooperation and Educational Inclusion and, over the years, had the opportunity to participate in two development projects abroad: first in India and then in Albania. Both experiences were very enriching, both humanly and professionally, and confirmed my desire to explore the world and my natural inclination toward the other. For this reason, too, I decided to leave last year with ASCS.

Arriving in Santiago: my engagement with ASCS in Chile.

I learned about ASCS almost by chance, searching online for associations that could give me the opportunity to volunteer in Latin America, a continent that had long attracted my attention. I had no specific destination: for me, the most important thing was to make myself available. In the end, I chose to come to Santiago, Chile, for six months.

Beyond the documents: listening to and protecting children at INCAMI

Here I mainly give my support to the INCAMI (Instituto Católico Chileno de Migración), a body of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference that deals with accompanying and guiding migrant people with respect to their migration situation and regularization of documents. But INCAMI is much more than that: it is a place that welcomes people and their stories of courage, resilience and injustice. About 60 people come every day, sometimes more, and a relationship of continuity and trust is created over time with counselors and lawyers. Specifically, my support relates to the regularization of minors in the territory: it means counseling and following practices related to the residence of children, girls and teenagers.

What struck me most about this experience is the need, on the part of the people we meet, to be “simply” heard: to be seen as people with a voice, and not as numbers, nationalities or news cases. A place that welcomes and includes, and that sees human mobility as an asset, not a problem.

A home that welcomes: life in the Scalabrini residence

In addition to this, every day I have the opportunity to have lunch and dinner in the family residence run by the Scalabrini Foundation. For me, it is a time to take a break and share, both with the team that runs the residence and with the families housed there. With them we share the simplest things, what was done during the day, but also more personal stories, related to their roots and their migration path. They are mostly Venezuelan, Colombian and Peruvian families, but not only; often marked by lives poised between two realities: their country of origin, desired but where it is difficult or impossible to imagine a future, and the country that welcomed them, chosen with the hope of a better life, but sometimes hostile and still somewhat distant from their culture.

In the last month, I have also had the opportunity to join the staff, once a week, in the activities offered by CIAMI (Centro Integrado de Atención al Migrante), a place where I live and where courses and initiatives aimed at women and migrant people residing in the area are organized.

Feeling at home in the encounter with each other

When I think about when I really felt at home, the simplest moments of sharing come to mind: the lunches and dinners together, the spontaneous conversations, the stories told around a table. That’s where I realized that feeling at home sometimes simply means feeling part of something, or sometimes, it’s really the encounter with each other.

What I take home is confirmation that it would probably suffice to stop and really listen to each other, without judgment and without preconceptions, simply remembering that we are human.