“When I was in Trieste, some Afghan boys told me that Italy was the first place where they had felt free and welcomed, where they had been able to catch their breath: I thought that the role of a volunteer is a bit like this … to be the hug, the smile, the ear stretched out to listen, that for a long time, in the course of a grueling journey, there were not.”
Narrating this is Elena Jona, a ResQ member, who spent 15 days in Trieste last July as part of the project we launched just before the summer to support migrants from the Balkan route at the day care center in via Udine, which is open every day and run by Comunità di San Martino al Campo, ICS and Donk, in collaboration with ITC and Diaconia Valdese. Volunteers juggle between preparing hot tea and distributing clean clothes, between impromptu Italian lessons and translating documents, between confidences about the journey faced and booking medical appointments.
“It can be said that our presence in Trieste consists of two dimensions: doing and being. The doing are the many small actions, simple but fundamental, necessary to meet the basic needs of those who arrive,” Elena further explains. “At the day care center in via Udine, people finally have the chance to take a shower, change their clothes, book a visit, recharge their cell phones … and we are there, to lend a concrete hand.”
And then there is being, which is “the opportunity to spend time with migrant people even outside the day care center, in the places where they hang out, to chat with them, exchange stories and get to know each other a little more.”
Elena continues, “Every day, after I finished my service at the center, I would go to the now famous Freedom Square, in front of the station, to meet people. At least a hundred young people, all between the ages of 15 and 25, arrive daily in Trieste after walking for months. The now nailless and injured feet are cared for by Lorena Fornasir and her husband Gian Andrea Franchi every night, 365 days a year. Many other volunteers from the Linea d’ombra association take turns in the square and offer a hot meal, clothes, shoes, blankets.
Once there, one cannot help but feel outrage and anger for those who are forced to embark on such a dangerous journey, to face what has been called “The game” by the migrants themselves, at the mercy of the cold, police violence, and illegal refoulement.
Since the start of the project, ResQ volunteers have always been present, with shifts of 8 or 15 days, and the requests to participate continue: weeks are already covered until the end of November, when we will reach 41 people. If the water of the Mediterranean is the world’s deadliest frontier, the land routes leading to Europe are no less violent and dramatic for those who travel them in search of refuge or a better life. It is to safeguard human rights and dignity, on land as well as at sea, that ResQ’s volunteers have begun working in Trieste.
If you want to help as a volunteer in Trieste, check all the positions needed and register in our database!