Painting Their Old Life Helps Them Build A New Life In Italy

Oct 02, 2017 750

BY: SYLVIA POGGIOLI

African asylum seekers in Italy are becoming artists — and it's not only helping them cope with the trauma they've been through but also introducing their stories to the local community. In Europe's migration crisis, Italy is ground zero. More than 500,000 migrants have arrived, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, since 2014.

Despite a smaller flow this summer, anti-migrant sentiment is growing. But in the Umbrian town of Trevi, population 8,372 as of January 1, a project called Make Art Not Walls is helping asylum seekers assimilate. Municipal authorities have assigned all of the town's 55 African asylum seekers to a former hotel, where for the last several months, a storeroom in the back has been serving as an artists' studio, funded by the Italian charity ARCI.

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SOURCE: http://delawarepublic.org/

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