Young people from Malta, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria and Italy recently teamed up with Italian artists from the association Flab Arts and migrants hosted in CAS Montesano, a centre for asylum seekers in Le Salento, southern Italy, to take part in a project promoting cultural diversity.
The project, entitled Hosting Opportunities for Migrants in Europe (Home), was organised by South Europe Youth Forum (SEYF) and supported by the Erasmus Plus programme. The aim was to promote intercultural dialogue by creating artistic bridges between the participants and migrants.
The project started with role plays, interviews and self-reflective activities which were crucial for the participants to understand the difficulties migrants face when they try to integrate in a foreign environment.
The subsequent days spent with the migrants helped the participants to see the struggles they faced back home; the economic difficulties; the lack of safety and security due to civil war; the persecution some ran from because of their religious beliefs, sexual orientation or political affiliation; as well as the risks of travelling by boat to an unknown destination.
During the project the participants and migrants were invited to the town hall for a meeting with the mayor of Montesano and the signing of a protocol for the social integration of migrants from the centre for asylum seekers. As a young immigrant pointed out, social integration was the biggest challenges they face in Italy. He said: ‘‘The people of Montesano are great. I want to show that migrants from Africa are also good people.’’
The last two days of the project were taken up by art workshops.
The wall of a school was chosen as the site to create a huge mural with a message promoting diversity as it is visible from one of Montesano’s main roads, and as such could remind drivers, children from the school and locals in the park of this message.
Every participant and migrant wrote a word on the mural in their native language, signifying cultural diversity.
Carla Zahra is a Communications student at the University of Malta.