“Meetings”: online migration platform is launched in Italy
Press release
DIMMI Project: “Meetings”, an online platform for migrant stories is launched in Italy
An online platform designed to promote and give value to the stories gathered in Italy as part of the ‘Tell me your migrant tales’ project, through workshops organised by a network of 47 organisations dedicated to combatting the root causes of xenophobia and racism, with coordination by Un Ponte Per…
Rome, 22 May 2019 – Promoting and giving importance to migration stories gathered as part of the ‘Tell me your migrant tale’ project, a large-scale initiative funded by the Italian Agency for Cooperation and Development (AICS) coordinated by Un Ponte Per (UPP) to combat the root causes of xenophobia and racism in Italy: this was the goal of the “MEETINGS” storytelling platform launched today on the Dimmi portal (www.dimmidistoriemigranti.it/incontri).
Through a series of workshops, laboratories on writing, theatre, web-radio, cooking and biography, the 47 Italian organisations involved in the DIMMI project provided opportunities for migrant women, men and girls and boys to interact with project workers.
Since September, when the DIMMI project was launched, there have been more than 100 events, workshops and opportunities for interaction between Civil Society and migrants, in the 6 Italian regions involved in the project (Lazio, Campaniam Sicily, Tuscany, Veneto and Lombardy). These events brought results, which are now being shared on the dedicated platform.
“MEETINGS” is a sort of ‘family album’, designed to give visibility to the voices and faces of project participants. Words, videos, audio clips and photos which relate the challenges of daily life – as well as the happy outcomes.
The platform is designed to give importance and visibility to these stories, to promote the project’s approach to encouraging migrants to tell their own stories as an alternative to current views of migration, to help combat stereotypes and prejudice in respect of migrants.
The “Tell me your migrant story” project will continue until 30th September and will involve more than 5,000 secondary school and university students: 450 teachers and 400 migrants. But it will reach beyond national borders: School ‘twinning’ programmes will be established between Italian institutes and schools and youth centres in Iraq and Lebanon, where UPP has been active for more than 26 years. The first cultural exchange is scheduled for May 2019 when a group of university students will travel to Iraqi Kurdistan with UPP.
Our partners in development and story gathering for the “MEETINGS” platform are QCode Magazine, CesuraLab and UPP.