The Italian team decided to tackle the migrants and refugees’ issue. Not only in our own city, but all around the country, most of the people have bad prejudices on migrants and refugees, and would prefer not to welcome them. The most common idea among our compatriots, particularly in Tortona, is that migrants come here to steal our jobs or just to survive with the living allowance funds delivered by our government: “they steal, they beg for money, they molest our women and they won’t improve their economical situation but only increase the rate of illegality”. Some months ago for these reasons, 60 migrants were rejected and an organized political group protested because of the bothering caused by migrants begging in the parking lots around the city and at the exit of supermarkets. Often also on social networks lots of people write their opinion about migrants in a very violent, offensive and aggressive way. Therefore, migrants are marginalized from our community and excluded from any possibility to be socially active. We think that this kind of hate speech can be very dangerous if not be taken into consideration.
That’s why we decided to organise some activities based on NFE and cultural exchange between migrants and young local people. Our aim is to raise awareness among Italians about the advantages that migrants can bring to our society and enlighten the urgency of actively integrate them in the community. We strongly believe that there are not sufficient integration programs for migrants, they rarely have the opportunity to enter in contact with our society, and then understand our values and customs. The integration of people coming from different corners of the world is extremely important in order to build a strong and cohesive society where everyone feels safe and accepted. We hope that our activity will create the first step to break down all the prejudices against migrants.
Harmful Narrative:
Not only in our own city, but all around the country, most of the people have bad prejudices on migrants and refugees, and would prefer not to welcome them. The most common idea among our compatriots, particularly in Tortona, is that migrants come here to steal our jobs or just to survive with the living allowance funds delivered by our government: “they steal, they beg for money, they molest our women and they won’t improve their economic situation but only increase the rate of illegality”. Some months ago for these reasons, 60 migrants were rejected and an organized political group protested because of the bothering caused by migrants begging in the parking lots around the city and at the exit of supermarkets.
Counter/Alternative-Narrative:
We will tackle the narrative about migrants with a developed workshop, which will take place in two different moments: the first one will happen in the youth center, the second one in schools.
The first workshop will be divided into different sessions: a theoretical part with storytelling and theatre labs and a practical part with cooking lab and dance session to share cultures and traditions.
The second workshop will be developed after opinions and feedbacks provided by the participants and will include more activities like sports, graffiti lab, board games.