December 12nd the Refugees services (Council of Venice) held a workshop open especially to social, health care, school operators and collegues who work in centres giving assistance to asylum seekers in the territory.
The workshop gave for granted that giving assistance is correct and just, it wanted to talk about rights and how to build and increase them, it wanted to share experiences and working methods. We try to sustain asylum seekers, but services offered in our centres need to be implemented by other services and operators in order to solve health, social and schooling matters. The workshop’s aim was to have our work, our work and problems refugees have known. A network among operators whose competences are difference should be created, this would help the solving of matters connected to asylum. In Italy accomodation and services are everyday talk, but rarely do people talk about it in a non abstract way. How should methods, services, lodgings be developed?
Issues we talk about with people inside the centres are many and complex: people and their journey to Italyare at the beginning unknown, then an in between period passes by after which a future slowly develops itself, failure also exists. Law and institutions are another problem, which we cannot avoid.
The awaiting time – we focused the workshop on the awaiting time which is the period asylum seekers must live through while awaiting for the hearing at the Central commision to come. The commision will decide on the asylum application. In case the refugee status is recognized these people stop being “non-people” and asumme rights and an identity: they become refugees. We studied how this awaiting time operates in inclusion and in people’s autonomy (going to school, knowing the city, learning the language, meeting people, etc.) but also in exclusion and in people’s dependance (not being able to work, to have a house, to have my own money, my personal rights and freedom are limited). In order to help these people we need to have their past known, their past is too often made of violence, destruction, death, torture, loss. We need to start a relation with the person who doesn’t know who we are, who doesn’t understand what happens since he/she has just arrived but understands that our intervention is important in order to find a place where to stay, food and information.
The relation at the beginning is unbalanced. Finding accomodation (which is not considered a right) implies a non equal relation: in this sense the centre politics, operators attitude and way they consider their job and their role, the way they elaborate first impact emotions. We too often forget that these people are not also pure victims, they are culture and knowledge holders, they are part of social networks, of transnational movements, they are often active people who speak different languages, who practice different works and are broadly experienced. On the other hand asylum seekers are angry, they feel sorrow, rage, they feel displaced and humiliated. They often are not able to tell their story: the relation with them is often difficult. We need to learn to travel together with them in the hell they passed through before reaching Europe and inside Europe as well (Dublin Convention). Knowing their past helps in aiding in building a new future.
The story – Telling one’s own sorrows and story can sometimes extremely difficult. Removing past sorrows, tortures, violence, loss of beloved one is often the only solution to survive. We tried to build a livable place where expert operators can help these people. Operators take them around and try to create a relationship with them different from the first one that usually emerges – we call it a predatory (continuos demands). Time, failures, results and reflections on what we do and we’ve done helped us in the building of new methods, instruments and instructions that we are today experimenting. This is what we’ve been discussing so far and we discussed during the meeting I’m actually referring of. We shared all operators experiences and problems.
The meeting turned out to be a good chance to give and receive bits and pieces of information. The day was very interesting, it started with a perfomance, a pièce performed by asylum seekers and operators. We always try to have people become protagonists of their story and to tell them themselves, not to be anymore invisible. Refugees showed the main moments they have to live through when they arrive here, their feelings, the hearing at the commision, its denials, etc. The pièce also showed the officers point of view, their difficulties and work. The performance came out from a stage held by the teatro dell’Oppresso.