School: "Europe begins in Lampedusa" workshop for students
Rome - They arrive from all over Italy. But also from Austria, France, Malta and Spain. Two hundred students will gather in Lampedusa to exchange opinions, discuss and learn more about the issues of immigration and integration and the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Four days, from Saturday 30 September to Tuesday 3 October, of workshops, meetings, face to face talks with migrants, survivors, experts and people working in the field. A school beyond the school. This is the "Europe begins in Lampedusa" project, which restarts from the island that has become a byword for Europes migrant crisis. With the students, says a note by MIUR (Ministry of Education, University and Research) there will also be the President of the Senate, Piero Grasso, and the Minister of Education, University and Research, Valeria Fedeli. What does it mean to be a migrant and a refugee? How can we pave a way for full integration? How can we achieve full awareness about immigration and migrant and refugee acceptance? Which words should be used to describe the phenomenon of migration? What happens exactly in Lampedusa, outpost of the Mediterranean and door to Europe? These are just some of the questions that the students who will meet on the island to celebrate National Remembrance Day in honor of the victims of immigration, will try to answer, on Tuesday 3 October, four years to the day 368 migrants lost their lives in the waters off the coast of Lampedusa, in what was one of the greatest tragedies of the Mediterranean. "Europe begins in Lampedusa", which has reached its second year, is a project promoted by the Ministry of Education, University and Research, in collaboration with the 3 October Committee. Made possible thanks to the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (FAMI), managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The students in Lampedusa are enrolled in the last three-years of secondary school and come from 35 Italian and 4 European institutes (from Austria, France, Malta and Spain). Among them, also 40 students from the island and a representation of the European Agency For Special Needs and Inclusive Education. The students were selected among those of the 230 schools who answered the call for applications published by MIUR last May. The program includes plenty of informative moments: Sunday 1 October, in the Protected Marine Area, "Recount of the facts: chronicles of a shipwreck", organized by the Municipality of Lampedusa and Linosa; Monday 2 October, meeting with the men and women who survived the tragedy four years ago, followed by a meeting, in piazza Castello, with the President of the Senate Grasso and Minister Fedeli (the discussion will be moderated by Rai Uno's journalist Giorgio Zanchini). The occasion will also be the opportunity to inaugurate the "young section" of the Museum of Trust and Dialogue (in Rome), which will collect the art work, photographs and videos, stories, poems and prose, created by the young boys and girls. In the evening, Grasso and Fedeli will have dinner with the students. On Sunday and Monday, at the Luigi Pirandello Institute, workshops and discussions will be held with the help of the national and international associations that operate in the sector. For the students, it will be a formal and informal occasion to learn more on the issues. The event will end on Tuesday 3 October, with a March to celebrate Remembrance Day (established by Law No. 45, of 21 March 2016) in honor of the victims of immigration. The March will start in Piazza Castello, at 8:30 in the morning, and will reach Porta d'Europa monument, by Mimmo Paladino. The students who took part in the 4-day event will march side by side with the survivors of the tragedy. Grasso and Fedeli will be joined by Stephane Jaquemet, Regional Representative for Southern Europe of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the mayor of Lampedusa, Salvatore Martello.