Newsletter #3 December 2012 From September to December 2012 several activities occurred in all the AMITIE Project countries. This number of the AMITIE Newsletter will be focused on the AMITIE communication campaign and all the related products designed and created by all the project partners and the involved institutions, NGOs and citizens. Keep up-dated on AMITIE initiatives, follow the web site www.amitie-project.eu, the blog www.amitiecommunity.eu and social network channels. AMITIE wants to highlight the International Migrants Day, on December 18th. As the Press Release of the United Nation stated, Vibrant civil society groups are among the keys to the well-being and functioning of any nation, and the United Nations deplores measures taken to suppress them. That is why, on this Human Right Day, the United Nations is highlighting the right to participate and the associated rights that make it possible freedom of expression and opinion, and peaceful assembly and association. International law is clear: No matter who you are, or where you live, your voice counts. AMITIE is in line with this statement and really believes in taking an active role and participate, in order to obtain the recognition and respect of migrants and citizens human rights. WORK IN PROGRESS AMITIE COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN By Giulia Grassilli Cineteca di Bologna The communication campaign AMITIE has officially started in all its partner countries: Italy, Spain, Romania and Latvia. The promotion will continue until Spring 2013 and it will end with an international festival on communication and creativity held in Bologna in April 2013. AMITIE is the result of a participatory process, creative exchange and collective production, aimed at creating opportunities for communication and interaction, whose protagonists are the new citizens. All the tools and images of the campaign were, in fact, created starting from real-life situations and personal experiences, narrated directly by the witnesses of the campaign to increase awareness and sensitivity to the phenomenon of migration, seen by those who live this experience. Twelve advertising images have been created and distributed to the cities taking part to the project, thanks to the commitment and generosity of 12 people from
Bologna, Riga, Seville and Bucharest, who told us their stories, their dreams, their aspirations, literally, putting their faces: Fabian, Alison, Hakim, Marjan, Gloria, Edjileni, Nadia, Alina, Ahmed, Hamid, Tjago, Julia. In the pictures you ll find the life of the witnesses and their wishes for the future. Now, 'This is my story: Or ours?' It is not anymore just 'their' story but ours, as we all live and work in our countries, hence it is 'our' future, all of us together! Together we create our future. Together we are an expression of our current plural society, where migration is a resource and cultural diversity an asset. A transnational film, direct expression of the migrant experiences have been produced, filming around 30 AMITIE testimonials in Bucharest, Seville, Bologna and Riga, who took this opportunity to tell of their aspirations and suggestions for a positive and enriched plural European society. You can view the film at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6w9mcg5rj8 In parallel to the traditional communication offline, an online digital communication strategy web 2.0 has also been developed to spread the AMITIE message, through our AMITIE community blog and our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr), to promote participation online and create a platform for plural creativity and dialogue. Finally to create opportunity for direct experiences and exchange, a programme of community events, meetings and activities is being developed until April final festival as opportunities for active involvement and expression of our plural society. Therefore we invite you to continue to follow us, to hear these stories and others, to discover the making of the film AMITIE, who are the creative working on the project and how we are proceeding with the upcoming events. And above all, the campaign has only begun. Follow us on the AMITIE blog http://amitie-community.eu/ and discover what you can do! THE AMITIE CAMPAIGN LAUNCH IN RIGA By Jekaterina Kirjuhina - Latvian Centre for Human Rights The launch event and press conference of the AMITIE informative campaign This is my story or our? in Riga held on Friday, 12 October. The aim of the campaign is to show positive impact of migration on state and society, stressing contribution of immigrants who came to Latvia during past ten years in social, economic and cultural area and readiness of Latvian society to accept these people. Local AMITIE ambassadors, representatives of state and municipal institutions, NGOs and mass media were invited to take part in the launch event. Public opinion surveys show, Latvian residents have mostly negative attitude towards impact of immigrants on social and economic processes in the state. According to the Human Development Report about Latvia, only 29% of residents believe immigrants bring benefit to Latvian economy. Among the campaign activities there are production of the film with immigrants stories, discussions about migration, human rights and development and announcement of four competitions. Shooting of the film directed by Reda Zine took place in Riga in September. The four competitions about migration issues
essays competition for students, video and animation film competition, photo competition, and competition for journalists got announced at the launch event. The works should be submitted by the February 2013. During first weeks of the campaign, the AMITIE posters were placed on the streets around Riga. The AMITIE Ambassadors from the posters called residents of Riga and Latvia to understand that they also work and study, raise children and help neighbours in Latvia just as all residents in order to make this country a better and more open place for flow of ideas and success. Information about the campaign launch event was widely reported by national mass media TV news, radio and news agencies. Interviews with each of the Ambassadors and other immigrants living in Latvia are to be published during six months of the campaign in two popular printed national media magazine edited in Latvian language Sestdiena and Russian language daily Chas. SPAIN Migration into crisis: multiculturalism built in a world without wall. By Ana Rioja - FAMSI In the launch campaign within, Cordoba Faculty of Philosophy and Letters welcomed a cinema forum day to talk about migration, development and Human Rights with multiculturalism, migration and communication specialists. In Spain, according to the Spanish Alliance against Poverty, more 12 million persons are poor and risk a social exclusion. This number highline unfavorable social environmental of migrants such as news limits to access a health basic care. The specialist of multiculturalism, migration and communication debated these issues phenomenon migration during a session video forum. When immigrant will be not more immigrant? Juan José Téllez started his discourse by this question drawing to attention on negative effect some back-planes. One of these based unemployment idea determine immigrant population back to them countries. Furthermore this hypothesis cannot be blocked from obtaining a more favourable horizon for immigration. Political and social crisis break old world patterns from World War II said Tellez for who think that worlds differences haven t validity. Companies relocation and unemployment high level confirm the economic system change increasing negative effect to migrants. Other Guest s AMITIE Day was Max Adam, lawyer and expert of European and Migration process. His important speech showed legal and illegal aspects among frontier and issues of citizenship. In the framework of AMITIE campaign, for among other activities, FAMSI has launched an initiative to disseminate the stories and the objectives of the project, looking for AMITIE S ambassadors. You could be one of them visiting THIS
WEBSITE. A real Story from Seville Seville, December the 7th. -The last June, a team directed by the Italian filmmaker Reda Zine, visited Spain to record the stories of life belonging to five people that have lent itself their lives to build an international real account made up by the experiences of migration and hope. The production, integrated in the international AMITIE project, lasted three days in which Zine, and the cameraman, Raffaello Rossini, stayed in Seville for three days shooting in different historical and typical places in the city as Plaza de España, Mercado de la Carne, Estación de Plaza de Armas, Reales Alcázares and Plaza de la Encarnación, that take part of the most crowded and popular points of the past and the present of the city. The objective was shooting a film that relate the stories of Gloria, Edileny, Sergia, Nadia and Jairo, talking about the reasons why they decided to leave Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Peru, Morocco and Colombia, looking for a better way of life far from their homelands, and how they created new dreams here, in Spain. An actress and presenter, two lawyers, an intercultural mediator, and a welder, all of them professionals from several countries that had to forget their careers for a long time, until they found new ways to develop their lives here. Zine and Rossini went the whole city looking for the places that are symbols of the values which these five people have contributed to a new country with: the economic, social and cultural heritage that they brought from their lands. The video has been distributed in several social networks and social media, and now it s possible to see it on: http://www.andaluciasolidaria.org (immigration news) ROMANIA By Ivona Leontescu - APEL Within the framework of AMITIE project, in July 2012, the filming crew from Italy arrived in Bucharest for taking shoots for the film This is my story. Or ours?. The film is focused on presenting the stories and the visions of the immigrants that are in Romania. For these the crew members met with 8 migrants from different countries with different history and reasons of their migration to Romania. The meetings took the shape of active dialogues between the director and the characters and tried to shape the story behind the persons. Every immigrant put his own mark on the interview by showing the director the places that influenced and characterized their integration in Romania. For emphasizing the diversity and the cultural richness of migrants as a integral part of the European society, the Romania version of the film present stories from migrants with different backgrounds, migrants that come from UE countries and non-ue countries, that experienced different ways of integration and had diverse visions regarding migration. The director Reda Zine focused on the places chosen by the immigrants and attempt to present Bucharest as the migrants see it. So in forefront appeared images of the places that are filled with immigrants emotions.
AMITIE IN DEPTH The AMITIE Guidelines By Mirca Ognisanti, Cdlei Comune di Bologna, Italy After over a year of research, experimentation with new forms of participation aimed at involving non-native citizens of foreign origin, experimentation with new ways to communicate the link between migration and development, the shelf of AMITIE products is enriched with a new instrument: the guidelines. The guidelines are operational directions for communication on migration, development and human rights, directed and designed not only for those who work on these sectors, but especially for Government employees, who have generally less experience in terms of communication. This is not a manual but it is a collection of operative indications arising from a series of interviews with key stakeholders, those working in migration for development and communication, that since long time have been contributing to the promotion of another idea development, participation as well as a promotion of human rights. This book guides the reader in a process of reflection that urges us to adopt a more conscious approach, aiming at spread a communication offer truly capable of add to the discourse on, the global look to those processes where migration is only one key aspect the protection of the rights of the new citizens. This document is open to feedbacks and suggestions, but also to criticism, to be used as inspiration to keep alive the debate that is open through the project and that AMITIE also aims to bring to light skills within the organizations local operators between services related to migration and cooperation. Therefore, we invite readers to post comments and suggestions on the Facebook page of the Project https://itit.facebook.com/amitieproject or on the Blog dedicated to the campaign WHAT S NEXT IN AMITIE? In the next months the communication campaign will continue in all partner cities. An international call for proposals will be launched shortly through all the networks of the AMITIE partners and you will find it posted on the blog. Then, if you live in Bologna, for example, you may save the dates of 25 January and 7 February 2013 for two thematic events respectively on the issues of sport & inclusion and of codevelopment, whose programmes are built in a participatory manner and so will be posted on the blog in due time. Finally, please save the dates of the international AMITIE final festival, which will take place in Bologna from 19 to 21 April 2013! This Newsletter has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this Newsletter are the sole responsibility of the Municipality of Bologna and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.