Attraverso 2022

Summer proposals for service, training and sharing in migratory and intercultural contexts

Crossing borders for a high intensity experience of service, training and sharing.

In some of the most significant places for the reality of migration in Europe, we want to contribute to rediscovering the Good even in the midst of pain and violated human rights, touching Life with our own hands, to nurture what drives us to put ourselves at service with the other.

The goal is to build a community of people who welcome each other, caring for each other and the Planet, inhabiting spaces of co-responsibility capable of generating new processes of transformation and promoting encounter in order to build a society in which differences coexist by integrating and enriching each other.

WHERE

In different places and contexts we will always have service and sharing at the center of the proposals, we will be supportive of people on the move and seasonal migrant workers, we will meet witnesses, and we will experience moments of reflection and exchange. We will follow two strands in particular: in Ventimiglia (IM), Oulx (TO) and Trieste we will talk about Italian and European borders, people on the move and paths through the woods. Instead, in Pontinia (LT), Cuneo and Foggia we will be in contact with farm labor, caporalato and exploitation of migrant workers. Cosenza will be a brand new experience in its own right of interculturality and interweaving, especially dedicated to those whose roots are among distant flavors, but whose lives are Italian.

USEFUL INFO
To participate in the camps we ask you to contribute a donation of €120 (must not be a barrier to participation): includes food, lodging, insurance and internal travel on camp days. Instead, each volunteer will have to make his or her own arrangements for travel to the camp site and for departure. One meeting will be arranged before departure and one upon return from the experience. More email info on where and how to donate and logistical issues will follow shortly. We ask that you add the e-mail from [email protected] to your address book.

RECIPIENTS
The proposals are aimed at young people aged 18 to 29. Are you over 29 years old? Write to us at [email protected] and also try to take a look at the Comboni Family’s summer proposals-some camps will be in the same places and may be a better fit for you! You can find them on GIM Camps 2022 – Youth and Mission

ORGANIZERS
Conceiving and implementing Attraverso is the ASCS – Scalabrinian Agency for Development Cooperation, together with various local, national and European partners including Fondazione Migrantes, Migrantes Cosenza, Caritas Cuneo, Caritas Ventimiglia, Caritas Latina, Archdiocese of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo, CVX Europea, Comboni missionaries, ICS Trieste and Linea D’Ombra odv.

Through is realized with the support of the Peppino Vismara Foundation, Migrantes Foundation and the Carmine Church in Milan.

WHERE. Trieste, gateway to Europe, terminus of the Balkan Route: Every day, through this city, dozens of people silently enter Italy after walking for weeks through the woods of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, after months of travel that brought them here from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and many other Near Eastern countries.

WHAT. We will experience an intense week together of getting to know, serving and sharing in contact with the migratory reality in transit in this place of arrival of the Balkan Route and departure. In Trieste we will meet faces and feet, listen to testimonies and be supportive of those who engage there every day.

WHEN? 2 shifts July 23 to 30 and July 30 to Aug. 6

WHERE Borgo Mezzanone: in the middle of a fertile plain where most of Italy’s tomatoes are grown, in the middle between Foggia and Manfredonia, but far from everyone is a small town invented in the Fascist two decades. Next to it is another city, made of sheet metal and shabby bricks above a former airport: it is the “runway” where thousands of laborers engaged in tomato picking, often victims of exploitation and caporalato, live in the summer.

WHAT.An initiative promoted by the Archdiocese of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo and the ASCS, it is an experience of service, meeting and sharing among volunteers, migrants and the local community in the province of Foggia to break down prejudices, counter exploitation and promote integration through Italian language school and cycle workshop.

Learn more

WHERE. Terracina to Pontinia. Pontinia, a fertile plain covered with greenhouses: this is where most of the vegetables that arrive on our tables are grown. “Origin: Italy.” The arms that grow radishes and salad greens, however, often come from afar: the workers are mostly Indians of the Sikh religion, a large but quiet community, ideal for widespread exploitation. It is one of the faces of 21st century slavery.

WHAT. We will experience a traveling week on what is an unknown invisible border of our country. The heart of the proposal is knowledge, service and sharing in contact with the Sikh community in the Latina area. We will hear stories and testimonies, starting with those who are on the ground every day to counter labor exploitation, such as Caritas Latina and other local activists.

WHERE A jagged border runs between the sea and the mountains: this side Grimaldi of Ventimiglia, that side Menton. Italy and France. A path that has been traversed by steps of history, for dozens and dozens of years. Every day the story continues and there are those who try to cross this border, to reach friends and relatives elsewhere: on foot, by train, by car, across the highway: invisible passages of visible people. Unfortunately, if you do not have the right papers in your pocket, the French border guard is always ready to turn you away. So every night in the summer in Ventimiglia there are more than a hundred sleeping camped under the viaducts of the highway.

WHAT: We will touch the border in all its forms: faces, stories, old rusty barriers, broken shoes, bridges that are homes, signs of hope. We will interweave our stories with those in Ventimiglia who continue to engage alongside people on the move in the face of institutional silence, and we will do our best to be supportive: we will meet Caritas Intemelia, Diaconia Valdese, WeWorld, Red Cross and others.

WHERE Cuneo, an area that thrives on agriculture and, because of this, breathes agricultural exploitation. From Cuneo to Saluzzo, from May to November, the countryside fills with seasonal migrants working on plantations. In this place inhabited by great resources but also strong injustices, the Caritas Presidium of Cuneo offers its help in support of migrant workers who are victims of caporalato.

WHAT? We will experience days of immersion in the agricultural territory of Cuneo and touch the phenomenon of caporalato. Our service will be in support of seasonal workers, working alongside Caritas Presidium workers: first reception, dissemination of information, relational accompaniment. There will be no shortage of moments of dialogue and sharing among volunteers and with the realities that work in the area to make us aware citizens, learn about and counter exploitation, and grow in justice and integration.

WHERE. Cosenza, a city rich in intertwining and contamination: behind it a history of languages and cultures that have succeeded, met, clashed and mixed, and a present with new challenges, beauties and contradictions.

WHAT? A week of sharing and discussion among young people with different roots, colors and tastes behind them to build a multicultural and multicolored Italy and world. We will experience the hospitality of the land of Calabria, with its contradictions and beauties: we will live some days in the city, others immersed in the greenery of Sila Park. Service will be a key element of our days: in order to become fellow travelers for people more in need, we will complement the activities that are carried out every day in Cosenza. The goal of the week will be to generate change: for the participants, for the people we will meet along the way, change of culture and mindset.

WHERE. Oulx, a small mountain town in the upper Susa Valley, behind Turin, has found itself to be a key transit hub for hundreds of men, women and children from Africa and the Near East on their way to France: they all stop here before attempting to cross the border Without being intercepted by border police.

WHAT. We will experience a European week along the Alpine route between Oulx and Briançon crossing the paths of migrants attempting to cross the border between Italy and France. These will be intense days of knowledge, service and sharing about the reality of migration and walking among the paths in the mountains on both sides of the border. We will meet and be supportive of those who engage daily alongside people in transit: Refuge Fraternity Massi, Pastorale Migranti of the Diocese of Susa, Diaconia Valdese, Rainbow for Africa, Refuge Solidaires.

Thanks to the collaboration with the international volunteer project “ATF – At the Frontiers” of the Christian Life Community-European CLC, Through Oulx will be a European-wide camp on a European frontier. Young people from various countries will participate: we will also speak English and French.

Can’t attend but still want to support Intercultural Animation activities?

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