From the Stars to the Mediterranean Sea
A report on a visit to Sicily by the Moderator of the URC Rev Nigel Uden
and ‘our’ Simone Maghenzani
The United Reformed church of Downing Place in Cambridge has been
supporting, via the World Church and the World Mission Group, the pro-
ject Mediterranean Hope for refugees and migrants set up by the Protestant
Churches of Italy, and mainly run and financed by the Waldensian Church.
In April 2018 Nigel and Simone were sent to make personal contacts there
and acquire a better knowledge of their activities. They visited Scicli, Pachino,
Vittoria and Pozzallo. And of course seeing with your own eyes and meeting
people is different from reading the news. Both Nigel and Simone were struck
by the warmth and commitment of
the people, whether employed or
volunteer, involved in the process
of welcoming and integrating the
migrants and the positive feeling
one could sense everywhere.
Mediterranean Hope consists of
four sections: observation, witness,
reception and political proposal. Ob-
servation in the Observatory on
Mediterranean migration on the small
island of Lampedusa, witness in the
House of Cultures in Scicli—which
has received the prestigious World
Methodist Peace Award—where
vulnerable people such as pregnant
women, mothers with small children
and unaccompanied minors are
helped by a team of social workers,
psychologists and teachers to adapt
to their new life and integrate into a
new culture. (Scicli is also the place
where the Montalbano TV series are
shot and many locals, who enjoyed
a boost to their meagre economy for
the first time thanks to the increased
tourism, are not that pleased with all
those migrants.)
The next step for migrants after the
first reception in Sicily is the Reloca-
tion Desk in Rome where the asylum-
seekers are helped to apply for the
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