We started in Camini, a beautiful small hill village on the East coast, where the mayor, faced with depopulation, has welcomed refugees to settle. This has led to regeneration, with young Calabrians returning and working alongside migrant settlers in an integrated and inspiring way, helped by European funding.
We were shown round by Haseeb, who came with his parents from Bangladesh via Libya. His father runs a tailoring workshop. There is an amazing circularity to one aspect of this, where warm second-hand jackets are collected and brought to his workshop. He customises them to be reflective and waterproof. They are then handed out for free to migrant workers who cycle along busy roads with no street lighting to and from work. This has drastically reduced fatalities and injuries. We also visited Hamza, who came with his parents from Syria, and is now in his early 20s, running the ceramics workshop with skill and commitment. We are currently collaborating with the development of a cycling eco-tourism project to bring further employment opportunities to this area, the poorest in Italy. It will link Camini with San Ferdinando, our next stop – watch this space in future for your chance to book on to this!
We then crossed over to the western coast to San Ferdinando, and were shown round by Ibrahim, originally from the Ivory Coast, who works for Mediterranean Hope (one of our partners) as a cultural mediator. We had a coffee with him in Dambe So (House of Dignity in Bambara), the first building converted to flats to provide decent accommodation to lift workers out of the squalor of the camps.
We also visited this prospective site – a group of blocks of flats built under a contract awarded to a crony of the local council, as is common. They ran out of money before they were finished, and so they stand empty. Mediterranean Hope are negotiating to take them over, finish them, and house many workers there. Let’s hope this comes to fruition. When we receive the final sales figure for each delivery to the UK, we pay an extra 10% which goes directly to providing this type of accommodation. Therefore when you enjoy your fruit, you are also contributing to this really important aspect of the life an agricultural labourer in Southern Italy.