WHAT WE ARE DOING
By us, for us. Our goal is to establish a practical university for the refugees who have crossed the Mediterranean and are requesting asylum in Italy. Many have died on the way and those who have survived have seen their friends and relatives perish, either in the sea or twice as many in the desert sands of Mali, Niger and Lybia.
Their past has been razed to the ground, their houses blown apart, their families decimated or felled by famine or illness, their friends dispersed or in hiding. They have their future, however uncertain, which they are determined to rebuild.
WHY WE ARE DOING THIS
Italy is not an easy country in which to do this. The laws pertaining to requests for asylum were laid out at the Geneva convention of 1951. The successive modifications have made the process even more tortuous. The Territorial Commissions, the Courts, the Ministry of the Interior and the organisations designated to provide shelter are uninformed, untrained, overloaded and vastly underfunded. This has created enormous obstacles for hundreds of thousands of people who have been ignored, ostracized and essentially abandoned by the authorities responsible for them.
THE SITUATION OF THE REFUGEES UP CLOSE
Often they remain in this limbo of desolation, uncertainty and fear for two to three years. This means that they are unable to work, learn or form dignified social relationships. If their requests are turned down, they are cast off into invisibility and near starvation. There are at present approximately 60, 000 refugees in the later situation, immersed in the stagnant economy of a country that has tended to reject any form of multiculturalism.
HOW WE WANT TO PROCEED AND ENLARGE OUR WORK
I, along with a small group of colleagues and friends have been addressing this problem of defacto-apartheid to offer dialogue, language skills, medical help, hospitality and above all the specific training in how the laws regarding asylum are interpreted and applied in Italy. This is the sine qua non for facing the Territorial Commission and the Appeals Court who decide their fate.
We would like to continue and expand this work, to form a non-profit legal entity that can be of larger practical help to those requesting asylum. We wish to create intensive courses in the use of renewable energy, along with the technical skills to put these principles in to practice. in particular to create dryer and cooler habitats, an area in which Italy sorely lacks training and knowledge and an area in which such skills can be useful in their countries of origin.
The skills to build warmer or cooler habitats will be useful the world over, but in particular in three quarters of the world, which to date is too hot to live or work in comfortably without spending a fortune for air conditioning. I have also envisioned, and produced prototypes for a line of laminated cardboard furniture which I have designed. I would like to set up a production laboratory hiring refugees, so they can have a means with which to earn a living. I believe, with adequate funding, this activity of making lighweight, inexpensive furniture out of recycled cardboard could grow into a thriving enterprise and support a large number of people.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR PROGRESS TO DATE
In the course of the past two years I have helped 22 people. I have housed and fed eight of them as my guests in my country property, from two months to a year and a half, and given legal help to eight people of whom four have miraculously all received a positive answer to their asylum requests. (Four others are still waiting for answers.)
As the rate of rejection is at present three quarters of the requests; to have obtained four bull's eyes in a row, bears witness I believe to the capabilities of myself and my devoted lawyers. I have also just managed to rescue the brother of one of my protegées from his death bed in a Libyan prison. I got him to a hospital and on a humanitarian boat that has finally arrived in Italy. These are tiny accomplishments in a vast sea of tragedy, but as the saying goes: 'to save one man is to save the world.'
Follow our journey here.
OUR NAME
A note on the name of our website (and future association which is in the process of being set up). Zango Gaban means Oasis Ahead in the Hausa language of the Tuareg. In the midst of the seemingly endless desert of human rights in this historical moment, we are trying to create a small oasis of support, technical help and solidarity, for those who need it most.
