Narrowing the Gap
Comunita Montana del Catria e del Nerone combats intolerance with Ambito Sociale 3.
By Kristin Parker
They walk with one foot before the other. They dress one pant leg at a time. They chew before they swallow. They smile, cry, laugh, and rejoice. They have a heartbeat, just like everyone else. But they don’t look the same or talk the same; they act differently and often times, they pray differently. They have traveled from far away places to start a new life in a strange place. Why are they here?
Immigration into Italy began relatively late, after the oil crisis of 1973-84 when England, Germany, and especially Italy’s neighbor France closed frontiers to immigration. This resulted in migratory flows being partly “diverted” to southern Europe, with Italy functioning as a transit country for other destinations for a number of years. For example, the 1981 Italian census revealed an unexpectedly “high” number of foreign residents and foreigners present in the country (source: Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Richerche sull’Immigrazaione). And so the trend was under way.
Between 1990 and 2000, nearly 40,000 immigrants chose the Marche region to begin a new life. The region sits at the central Adriatic slope in Italy extending over 9,000 square kilometers and is subdivided into four similar-sized provinces, characterized by small and medium-sized settlements. Cagli, one of the smaller settlements in Le Marche, has developed a bold initiative to help neighboring towns embrace immigrants, or stranieri,a non-offensive term used to describe individuals of non-Italian descent.
Ambito Sociale 3
Cagli is the seat of the Comunita Montana del Catria e del Nerone, an administrative agency pooling resources and services from a consortium of five neighboring towns: Acqualagna, Apecchio, Cagli, Cantiano, and Piobbico. Addressing the needs of nearly 20,000 citizens, the comunita is proving to be the voice of growth, the spirit of tolerance, and the hand of hope for the 1,500 immigrants in this 540,000 square kilometer area. Among its agencies is the Ambito Sociale 3, a social action initiative that guarantees the right to integration, to intercultural education, and to reception for immigrant families, particularly children.
Created in 2001 as a complement to the educational components in local schools, Ambito Sociale 3 teaches immigrant school children how to integrate linguistically – assessing initial level of language skills, offering individual and group literacy support (knowledge, better understanding of the language and vocabulary extension), and supporting social and cultural interchange in the classroom. Additionally, students are taught to use computers and technology. Stefano Cordella, director of Ambito Sociale 3, explains that children of immigrant families have tutors and after school classes made available in an effort to narrow the language barrier that could potentially pose a major obstacle to educational growth.
In June 2008, the European Union’s parliament passed tough laws for expelling and detaining immigrants. In Italy, the far right wing of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government proposed one of the strictest anti-immigration laws on the continent, provoking heated opposition from human-rights organizations, the Vatican, the United Nations, and also Italian prosecutors fearing courts would be swamped by criminal cases.
In response to these laws, the Comunita Montana del Catria e del Nerone developed a second component of it's Ambito Sociale 3 to help immigrant students integrate into Italian culture. The cultural component emphasizes Italian traditions, ethics, and social norms, in order to provide a better foundation for newcomers and a stronger basis for fitting in with the locals and conducting a normal life.
Comunita Montana del Catria e del Nerone has recently extended its Ambito Sociale 3 services to include mother/child language courses and extra curricular activities. Cordello affirms that many immigrant children serve as translators for their families, adding more pressure to their social lives. As a result, these courses were created so that families can learn the language together. Extra curricular activities, which include theater, comedy and sporting events, are also provided to 2nd generation students, students born in Cagli but not of Italian descent.
Prevention Mechanism
The need for a program like Ambito Sociale 3 came not from an epidemic of violent intolerance in Cagli, but rather as a means of prevention. Cagli has a population of approximately 10,000, and while the stranieri are few, the non-Italian residents include Romanians, Maldovians, Albanians, Japanese, Chinese, Africans, Moroccans, and Germans.
Delfina Betoni, principal of Scuola Media de Statale, confirms that there are a number of diverse cultures at her school, yet there is little stereotyping, typecasting, and exclusion. “Students seem to get along quite well,” she says. A larger issue in her mind is the varied emphasis on education. She explains that some cultures (e.g. Albanians and Maldovians) strongly emphasize education, while others (e.g. Moroccans) do not and would rather their children be working the family trade than attending school. Overall, Betoni is happy with the diversity in her school and the way the children treat each other.
Kayzuyo Kato, a Japanese resident of Cagli, has a slightly different opinion. Kato came from Tokyo to study Italian when she was 24 years old. Since her arrival 12 years ago, she has married a Cagliese and is a proud mother of two young boys. The first few years of living in Cagli, Kato does not recall feeling excluded, or stereotyped. She believes that her acceptance came from being the only Japanese in town.
Now that more Asians, especially Chinese, call Cagli their home, she feels that there is more cultural tension. She explains that locals make no distinction between Japanese and Chinese and often get them confused. Some Cagliese make facial gestures, mock the way Asians talk, and consider all Asians the same. While her children have many friends, both Italian and non-Italian, Kato explains that it’s easier for her boys to make friends with other stranieri, because they relate to the intercultural experience better. She fears however, that as her sons get older, peer pressure becomes stronger, and cultural differences become more apparent, they will find it more difficult to make and maintain friendships with other Italian children.
So is Ambito Sociale 3 working? According to Cordello and Betoni, the program has helped significantly in integrating the stranieri children into Italian culture and facilitating their educational and social success. Kato agrees that the efforts are certainly worthwhile but is obviously nervous about the future of her children’s acceptance by their peers. There will always be immaturity and stereotyping to deal with, but the hope is that the Ambito Sociale 3 will alleviate some of it.
Immigration to Cagli presents challenges, but narrowing the gap between exclusion and acceptance is the mission of the Comunita Montana del Catria e del Nerone and its Ambito Sociale 3 initiative.
Web production by Kristin Parker
