On Friday October 21 and 28, AUR organized two one day seminars for future immigrant leaders in cooperation with the City of Rome. Rome has four adjunct city councillors who represent resident immigrants from the Americas, Asia, Africa and eastern Europe; they asked AUR to prepare the seminars, an initiative we jumped at it is part of our mission and builds on AUR’s Center for Research on Racism in Italy conferences, projects and research on immigrant and racism issues.
Twenty four young people from 18 to 35 from a wide variety of national backgrounds, some native Italians and some recent immigrants came together to listen to experts but also to complete exercises and make their own proposals on what “leadership” is and how it might be shown in Rome.
On the first day, Rodolfo Giorgetti and Stefania Congia of the Italian Ministry of Labor and Social Policy explained how immigration and diversity enrich the host country and the Ministry’s integration policies. Barbara Fridel and Simona Moscarelli of the International Organization for Migration laid out the legal rights and duties of migrants and governments and finally Maurizio Malogioglio of the Food and Agriculture Organization explained how the importance of remittances.
On the second day, the four adjunct councillors, Madisson Godoy, Victor Okeadu, CONTACT _Con-3B2C87BABA1 Tetyana Kuzyk and Romulo Salvador used their different experiences to illustrate what leadership means in practice. Fabrizio Molina from the NGO “Nessun Luogo è Lontano” showed what political leadership can achieve and Giuseppe Casucci from the UIL’s Migration section explained what the labor movement can do for migrants. Finally, AUR’s Isabella Clough Marinaro, Bjørn Thomassen and James Walston presented a workshop.
After each presentation the participants and members of the public broke up into groups for exercises which they then reported on.
AUR students were among the chosen participants using their intercultural and multicultural skills to build up confidence among the “new Italians” or second generation immigrants.
The initiative continues with debates and dialogue on the dedicated website, with consultations that the Ministry of Labor asked participants for and for the moment, a couple of internships too.
For additional information, please read the following post on James Walston’s Italian Politics blog.
