People to dream with
Hello!
I‘m Marta, I’m 29 years old, I like pizza, especially when you eat it with friends, and the mountains, especially when you walk on them together. I studied literature and ancient history, the most beautiful subjects in the world. For the past few months I have been working in a school called CPIA, Centro Provinciale per l’Istruzione degli Adulti (Provincial Center for Adult Education), where every day I meet men and women of all ages and from all parts of the world who are putting their pen and notebook to work to learn the language, history and culture of the country where they happen to live, Italy.
My steps crossed those of ASCS in 2017, when a friend told me about an incredible week she experienced in Puglia, alongside seasonal workers employed in the countryside of the Foggia area. From her story came the desire to participate in the Io Ci Sto camp, for which I left a few months later.
The adventure in my case, however, was not only the camp, but mostly what happened afterwards….
In fact, I was not the only one from my area to have participated in the Io Ci Sto camp that year: a large group of young people from Chieri and the surrounding area had dedicated a week or more of their summer to learning about the reality of laborers in the Foggia area, and all had returned home with a great desire to do, to tell and to share. From that energy and the tireless work of a few people-who have since become special friends and friends-dreams and projects were born that through various steps led, after a few years, to the creation of a new ASCS headquarters right in Chieri, a very important place to amplify the desire of so many young people to be bridge builders.
Among the many experiences with ASCS (camps, film and theater reviews, training weekends, workshops in schools, talks, lunches, dinners and walks…) and among the many bridges that I have seen emerge and grow over the years, there is one that is particularly close to my heart: the one that we are building together with friends from Cuneo, Saluzzo and Fossano, which has already taken the form of two training and volunteer camps between Cuneo and Saluzzo and which will offer beautiful new things in the coming months.
I am very fond of this project not only because of the beautiful bonds of friendship that are being forged with the people working in those areas, but also because I believe so much in the importance of being able to look at what is happening “down home.”
Thanks to ASCS, a few years ago I traveled across the peninsula to meet migrant people living in the countryside of Foggia; now, thanks to ASCS, I have the opportunity to meet those who work just a few miles from my home in the Piedmont countryside and, again, to get to know their stories and reflect on the exploitative situations in which they live.
Leaving and staying, being able to look far away, but also noticing what’s next to me; getting to know distant worlds, but also taking care of my own territory: all these things, amalgamated and intertwined, are part of my ASCS experience. Experience that gave me moments of tremendous growth, taught me to put myself on the line, helped (forced?) me to overcome some of my fears; allowed me to encounter realities that I would have otherwise hardly been able to see, to deepen my knowledge of migration-related issues, to do service with and among migrant people, but that, above all, gave me people to dream with; people who are not afraid of walls and who, brick by brick, build bridges, even where it does not seem possible. Thank you!
