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The living conditions of people seeking asylum in a foreign country, fleeing war and persecution, is often dramatic and temporary. To take actively part in order to contribute to the improvement of their living conditions is possible and relatively simple. With Welcome Refugees is now possible to host a refugee as roommate. The host can be helped to bear the costs through micro crow-funding projects and through specific public funding. In the meantime, refugees will be helped to settle into a more human reality made of relationships, activities, exchanges, in a fair coexistence that respects everyone’s dignity. The International Network Welcome Refugee was born in Berlin in 2014, arriving in Italy the following year, to spread foster homes for asylum seekers.

The garden as symbol of the community: that’s how in Lampedusa people create places of research, experimentation and aggregation through the unifying factor of the land and its vital productivity. The creation of a community garden, whose lots are intended for islanders and of the Day Center of Lampedusa’s guests (people with physical and psycho-intellectual disability), will soon be repeated with the creation of a second one, which will be built during the 2016 volunteering summer camp organized by Terra! Onlus.

“The image of the island – explains Silvia Cama, coordinator of the project – is too often linked to dramatic events, while the project of the gardens in Lampedusa intends to give back a positive and vital picture of this land, both externally and internally”.

The garden is therefore a path for individuals and communities to become aware, not only a way for environmental and landscaping regeneration. In partnership with the University and Legambiente, the association chose to select local seeds originating on the island, to activate low water impact crops, to construct two geodesic domes for the reception area and the “semenzario” (seeds nursery), thus creating a sustainable project in many ways: environmentally, economically and even aesthetically, as they are placed in the archaeological areas (in accordance with the local Authority). The project, started with Alleance Foundation’s funding, allowed the growth of a small local economy. A person, funded full-time, will follow the project on-site for two years. Thanks to the work of day care center guests, a collection door-to-door of organic waste from greengrocers is now active, in order to feed the garden compost. Personal and food self-sufficiency, dignity, environment, relationships are therefore the key words of this project which starts from the land to create a new vision.

‘O Mammut is a strange and large porch with six columns in Piazza Giovanni Paolo II in Scampia, Naples. In 2007, from the experience of the Territorial Centre in Scampia together with Compare (social promotion association) the research center come to life. It’s a difficult territorial context, everybody knows that. But over the years, Mammut sought a new way of creating specific forms of sociability for all ages, combining educational research, zoning, theater and visual arts: from children’s workshops to educational support for teenagers, from the guidance center to the homeopathic medicine clinic, from the Ciclofficina to the Italian school for immigrants, always extending their knowledge and involving organizations of different regions, therefore leading to some editorial publications.

Mammut is also a training school which feeds social experimentation at school with ideas and stimuli, providing theoretical and practical tools. The social context of the city of Naples allowed to work on projects aimed to the involvement of migrants and rom, foreigners and Italians, in a very multicultural context, and hence highly stimulating as well as complicated.

The power of the pedagogical approach and the fierce desire to cultivate social relations, in a new and lasting way, has allowed the consolidation of an experience made up of people, but also of places. Streets and squares went back to the community.

Centro Territoriale Mammut -Piazza Giovanni Paolo II, 3/6, Napoli
www.mammutnapoli.org – aps.compare@gmail.com – Pagina Facebook