Mana Ilaria, as I was called in 2012 during my firstvolunteer experience with ASCS at the Nampula Mission in Mozambique.. Simply Ilaria here in the province of Bergamo, where I grew up and currently live. The impact on African soil was strong and disorienting, but the warmth of the people gets under your skin and you can’t help but feel at home, even so far away. The return to Italy was equally traumatic, to the point of prompting me to choose to depart in 2014, headed to the other side of the world, to the ASCS mission in La Paz, Bolivia.

I lived at the Migrant House for a year, and I can say with certainty that during those months I experienced the “world at home”, unique and unrepeatable experiences and people, who taught me a lot about the art of universal dialogue, diplomacy and patience. I lived another three years in Bolivia, serving the Diocese of El Alto in projects with youth, children and migrants.

These were incredibly intense years in the mission, allowing me to mature and reevaluate the priority of my life, enabling me to face multiple adversities with a strength I never thought I would have.

Returning to Italy in 2018 was a further boost to serve the migrant population, thanks to the know-how gained, to face together the difficult period that was ahead in our country. Right from the start I was able to coordinate a migrant reception project of the Prefecture of Milan, with which I am still partly collaborating, and provide legal and administrative advice through a migrant desk.

I don’t know where the path I embarked on several years ago now will take me, but I sincerely thank everyone I have been able to meet along the way because they have allowed me to become the woman I now am.