The month of October was a time of celebration and sharing for the entire Scalabrinian family: John Baptist Scalabrini was proclaimed a saint on Oct. 9 in St. Peter’s Square. As ASCS, we were able to renew, on this occasion, our daily commitment to accompany migrants and local communities on a journey aimed at meeting, welcoming and raising awareness regarding human mobility issues. The canonization was also a time to see friends and friends from the Salabrinian missions around the world with whom we collaborate on projects and by sending volunteers.

Intregrated Welcoming

At Scalabrini House 634, this month began with a party with friends, volunteers, neighbors and residents of the house to usher in another year full of activities, classes, workshops and projects, amidst dancing, music and food to rediscover the desire to be together and come together to fill the house with warmth.

As always, this was an opportunity to propose this new year’s courses to all. The courses include Italian, English, driving school and tailoring. These have been staples among the most useful and requested activities for years now. However, in order to offer services closer and closer to the people we meet, we have decided to take on new paths. Aiming to provide practical tools for dealing with everyday difficulties, in collaboration with Kairos and Pathways to Citizenship, we have designed a new course called “Digital Citizen” that aims to address everyday challenges such as making the SPID, using the email account and more. All of this is made possible by the availability of time and passion of our volunteers, who enthusiastically devote themselves to people and courses. With their support, it was also possible in our Milan office, thanks to the collaboration with the Ukrainian più association and the Chiesa del Carmine, to provide an Italian language course and homework aid, free of charge and open to anyone.

The Wasi project also continues, with which it aims to provide a space for migrant women to listen, compare and share in order to help them overcome the difficulties and traumas arising from the migration process. Held at Casa Scalabrini 634, the first of two workshops entitled “Invisible tigers. Ideas for managing anxiety“, offered free and in-person to Latin American women, with guidance from our native Spanish and Portuguese-speaking psychologists. Within the same project, the meeting “The power of the feminine: a conscious rediscovery“. Wasi psychologists conducted a workshop in which with various individual and group dynamics, the theme of femininity was reflected upon. The meeting was attended by 25 women from different communities.

Intercultural Engagement

This month we were in Turin, at the Flash Mob for the Day of Remembrance and Reception, to “Give a Name” and restore dignity to those who lose their lives every day between the borders of Europe and the world, fleeing from war and persecution, in search of a new life. The event was part of “And you welcomed me” – Festival of Welcoming, organized by the Turin Pastoral Office for Migrants with many partners, including the ASCS. Designed to stop and reflect on the issue of reception and migration-related issues, the second edition of the festival saw many events between Turin and Chieri, including book presentations, films and debates: from the show “The Monsoon. A Story of Corporalism,” which delves into the lives of Indian laborers exploited by an inhumane agricultural system in the Agro Pontino, to the screening of the film One Day One Day set at the Borgo Mezzanone racetrack. In this latest event, the youth of Più Ponti Meno Muri #ASCS who have experienced the Io Ci Sto camp during the summer, told the audience about their own volunteer experience on that very same track: bringing their testimonies of stories and people they met in Borgo Mezzanone, shortening the distance from that reality that seems so distant and abstract.

Being there, finding each other and continuing the journey. After the experiences of summer service camps throughout Italy in areas with physical and existential boundaries, we gathered at the ASCS headquarters in Chieri with many old and new friends to share and redesign a new year together!

Outreach efforts also continue in the city of Rome: among the many schools we hosted, two of the meetings were attended by the Comp. Of Roma Est Simonetta Salagone who came to us through collaboration with ASS. A SOUTH that promotes workshops in schools “Recycling, Territory and Cultural Sharing for Active Citizenship.” Building on this theme, they came to us to find out who we are, what we do, and most importantly how, through the tailoring workshop, we have been training beneficiaries in the art of tailoring for the past 7 years, using discarded materials, by bringing together people of different cultures and nationalities.

ASCS on the borders of Europe

In October, Davide Pignata, an ASCS worker, moved to Trieste, Italy, from where he will travel to some of the continent’s migration hotspots to help us understand how ASCS can be increasingly present at Europe’s borders. This month he was in Subotica and Somor in northern Serbia. These are also some of the most important hubs on the route to Northern Europe. As winter approaches, concerns increase for the approximately 2,000 people stranded at the border.

Barbed wire wall between Serbia and Hungary. Photo by Francesco Cibati.

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