We are Chiara and Federico, wife and husband, ASCS volunteers since 2016.

We introduce ourselves together because, as a couple, ASCS has been a milestone in our history and it really means a lot to us.

Our first experience in ASCS was the Io Ci Sto Camp in 2016, in Borgo Mezzanone, which we found online while looking for a chance to learn about migration phenomena and learn firsthand about the reality of caporalato in Italy. Already there we realized that the charism of ASCS belonged to us, made deep chords resonate in us and set us on our way.

We have participated in various volunteer experiences in ASCS over the years: other camps, the volunteer training course,the World at Home. Specifically, in 2017 we left for Haiti and were welcomed into the ASCS mission in Port-Au-Prince. That experience exceeded all our dreams or expectations: we wanted to put ourselves out there and be questioned by a reality completely different from our own. So it was, but we were given so much more: wonderful encounters, punches in the face given by a stark and unforgiving reality we witnessed, opportunities to spend ourselves and get out of our comfort zone, moments of sharing with local people or other volunteers.

Throughout, we were guided by more experienced ASCS volunteers, who made us feel welcomed and “protected”-we could walk with someone watching over us. Haiti entered our hearts, shaped us and pushed us to make fundamental choices for our lives.

When we got married in 2020, we chose the Carmel Church, ASCS headquarters, because that is the church where we feel we belong. We are still collaborating with ASCS, which has the tremendous merit of valuing its volunteers according to their abilities and aspirations, making wonderful projects possible.

Our latest experience is the Afya project, a health care desk for migrant people in Milan., which came into being thanks to ASCS’s trust in the two of us, doctors by profession, and Micol, another professional in the field. Thanks to ASCS, we have been able to put an important part of ourselves at service and create something new, something that makes us proud and that we hope will extend a helping hand to the migrant people in our city who struggle with so many difficulties in the medical-health field.

Again with ASCS, we have another departure on the horizon, this time a longer one, to try to give back, at least in part, all that has been given to us. We already know that we will come back even more “indebted”: because ASCS catalyzes people’s desire to do good and spend themselves and transforms it into something bigger, beautiful and concrete.

Our wish for these 20 years is that in the future ASCS can continue to intercept more and more people, realize dreams, weave relationships, get its hands dirty alongside difficult life situations; and that it can continue to do so with the same wonderful spirit.