The school has highlighted the problem of integration in a very small and isolated communities, such as Festiona.
To contain the problem, the boys were placed in some small voluntary projects, side by side with people that can benefit from their help: small agricultural jobs that do not involve the use of mechanical equipment, such as kitchen gardens, or employement in community services for the Municipality of Demonte.
These small occasional and irregular manual tasks have been proved valuable for the oral language learning. Most of all, these works allowed to increase the self-esteem of these guys by making possible the coexistence within the group and overcome or limit moments of unavoidable distress.
The reasons why these guys left their home are the most diverse.
Some people fled from tragic family situations, those who have seen their homes taken away after the loss of their fathers. Many of them have suffered physical and psychological violence. Many fled from civil wars. Wars that have bloodied their country.
What unites these lives and these stories is the destination of the trip. No one had considered Italy. Everyone wanted as final destination Libya, where it was easy to find a work and send money to families. Then, the war. Many of them have been imprisoned and tortured in jail, suspected of being mercenaries of the “rais”. The boarding have been a forced choice.
In Italy, the task of deciding who can request for asylum is given by specific committees. Very often they refuse requests considering them “economic migrants.”
When their residence permit expire, if it is not renewed by the competent authorities, they run the risk of incurring the crime of illegal immigration.
Also entering into stable work situations is complicated by the huge bureaucracy that makes very difficult the path of young migrants.
The limbo they are forced in seems to have no way out.
The title of the project “is not working” is born from a confrontation had with one of these guys: Ousmane. He has described the difficulties that every day they have to face, the deep uncertainty of the future, a sense of “imprisonment” in a situation of uncertainty that seems unsolvable. They have no place to live and nobody to go to.
About the author:
Daniele Giorgis was born in Cuneo, in 1987. He Studied as software developer and began photography at 21 years old, self-taught. In 2013 he attended the postgraduate course in Photography at the European Institute of Design in Turin. In 2016 decided to begin to treat social issues and become part of the association Six Degrees (composed of journalists, writers, photographers, film makers, intellectuals) whose purpose is to tell wars, ethnic conflicts, religious and racial, the political and social instability and the problems related to the environment, immigration, poverty, exclusion and discrimination in every parts of the world.
