Today was the beginning of our three-day class week, but with all the things planned for these three days, it's reminding me very much of the good old HIA days in Berlin with 9 AM to 8 PM schedules full of site visits, seminars, and discussions. I have to say, it's been a while.
This morning, I woke up early and tried to finish up some emails I had been working on yesterday as well as some other items for my HIA Fellowship follow-up. It was a great start to my day to read some awesome email responses to my update email yesterday! I always love reading long responses from people who shoot me a quick email to share the latest news in their lives, but I know everyone's extremely busy with their own lives too.
I know I'm supposed to be focusing on my studies here in Rome (although my education class does connect to this topic, I guess), but a New York Times article I read yesterday called "Hard Time Hitting Students and Schools" still has left me with a sad feeling in my heart. You can read it at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/education/01school.html?ref=education. It left me thinking about the sorts of things I could, should, and want to do to make sure that every child has the opportunity to get an education. As depressing as the situation is, it's articles and stories like these that inspire to do even more.
Our class this morning was the first time we'd been collectively together since last Thursday, so we started off with a bit of catching up. While Steffen, Brukab, and I left our footprints all over Rome, some of classmates took a train to Venice, to Florence, to Pisa, to Pompeii, basically, all over Italy. Others, myself included, decided to spend our weekend back here in Rome. Manka, our program director, commented that it was funny to hear how we described our weekends just taking it easy and staying in Rome..."Yeah...I decided to just take it easy and stay in Rome this weekend, so I strolled to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. That was pretty much it." How funny perspective can be.
We had a short visit this morning to a program housed in Rome called "Save the Children" which focuses on securing rights for unaccompanied immigrant minors and other folks who arrive in Italy, many of whom land on the southern coast of Italy. Turns out, Save the Children partners with the UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) and the Red Cross. Angela Oriti, the representative who spoke with us at the program center, shared with us about the difficulties that this population faces--everything from a confusing and difficult legal process to the perspectives of the individuals themselves. If you're a young 16 or 17 year old, it's only natural to say you're older than you actually are if you think age will provide you more opportunities. This would be, of course, not knowing that the rights of an unaccompanied minor can get you much further along and buy you more time to obtain legal rights to stay longer in the country.
That's where Save the Children tries to help--by helping new immigrants, particularly those who are minors, understand the opportunities granted to them. However, this is only a small piece of the puzzle as the policies themselves are so that the odds are completely stacked up against anyone trying to work through the process legally. The grace periods are ridiculously short, the amount of wait time is absurdly long, and the limitations for what a person can or can't do while applying make survival practically impossible.
Before I came to Italy, I had a conversation with a friend who lives and works in Berlin about the state of immigration in Italy. The conditions in southern Italy, she said and as Angela confirmed today, are similar to, if not worse than, those of a third world country. As Angela said today, she was shocked about some of the areas where the boats, packed to the brim with folks trying to make it into the country, landed on the coast of what is called "the boat graveyard."
I'll upload pictures later this week from the displays we saw. But the rest of our afternoon, we spent discussing in our class about what we noticed from last week's exercise at Piazza Vittorio. It seems that the majority of the immigrants did not seem to consider themselves to be Italians at all, but rather strictly business owners here to make a profit and move on to the next place for business. It was also a good discussion about how, for those of us in the group who were immigrants to the US, when we are asked about our immigration story and hear comments like, "Oh, your English is really good," it annoys us a lot. So it wasn't surprising that we didn't have the most receptive responses in talking with folks here.
We finished our class with Leonardo Carocci, a high school teacher and sociologist, who is actively involved in a program called "Social Mediation." Their aim is to help solve conflicts through active listening and similar techniques. It was an extremely long day, and I was feeling really drowsy, so unfortunately, I only got the bare bones of his presentation. Plus he spoke all in Italian with Manka translating everything into English for us. By the end of our discussion with him, I was completely drained and had to skip out on the planned dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe with some of our classmates.
It's been difficult not to think about the amount of work I still have on my plate even while I'm here. From revising my final research paper for HIA to putting together my HIA action proposal, from finishing my reading for this course to most of all gearing up for Dream Project, there's always plenty to think about.
Anyway, tomorrow is supposed to be our longest day of the week, so I best head to bed...more to come soon.
Sam
No comments:
Post a Comment