The refugee at service for refugee

It’s named Nautilus and it is a project promoted by the Ministry of the Interior and Connecting People to foster the socio-labor integration of immigrants. To know more West got in touch with Prof. Morcellini, Head teacher of the Science of Communication Faculty and Director of the Communication and Social Research Department of “La Sapienza” University of Rome, which has done within the project a research on “migration profile” in Italy.

1. Mr Morcellini, could you please explain us what “Project Nautilus” is? What are its main goals?

The Project Nautilus – from reception to integration is financed by the European Refugee Fund and the Department of Immigration and Civil Liberties of the Ministry of the Interior. It is also promoted by Connecting People in partnership with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Communication and Social Research Department of the “Sapienza” University, Consorzio Mestieri and the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR).

Nautilus aims at improving the efficiency of the national asylum system through the creation of twelve contact centres throughout Italy that will help asylum seekers find all the information they need.
Thanks to an integrated and systemic approach, institutional and non-institutional agencies, national and local services have been put together in order to promote the integration of the services provided and establish a connection among the reception centres for asylum seekers, the SPRAR network (SPRAR – System of Protection for asylum seekers and refugees) and all the subjects involved in this phenomenon.

Through the distribution of questionnaires, another important initiative carried out by the Communication and Social Research Department of the “Sapienza” University collected information and data regarding asylum seekers and the beneficiaries of international protection. Then, a database has been created with the purpose of helping people orientate themselves in this complex field, and find the appropriate services to their needs.

By observing the expectations of these individuals, this research activity tried to outline the “migration profile” of people requesting international protection as recommended by the EU Commission. The data collected are extremely useful and pave the way to the creation of a more effective integration policy. Furthermore, this initiative also identified information regarding important aspects of the interviewees’ life such as their relation with health, the care offered by health institutions, their housing conditions, the main difficulties they deal with in Italy and the efficiency of organisations providing them with help and support.

It has been crucial to organise two training sessions for operators and mediators focused on a number of issues such as the presentation of the project, the analysis of the Italian laws regulating asylum and the local functioning of labour market.

2. What are the most important results of such an initiative?

Doubtless, the main result achieved by Nautilus is the creation throughout Italy of twelve contact centres, where around thirty specifically trained operators receive and give their support to refugees, asylum seekers and the beneficiaries of international protection. It is important to underline that about the half of the operators working in these centres is made of refugees.

The Department – which for many years has studied how mass media describe the phenomenon of migration – organised and realised a working table called “The image of international protection seekers in Italian mass media”. This table gave us the opportunity to stimulate the debate among journalists, associations and institutions dealing with international protection seekers, teachers and experts in order to identify operational proposals and find a cooperation method with regard to the relation between mass media and migration. Thanks to this initiative, which attracted a number of subjects operating in the Roman area, we identified, on the one hand, some problems of journalism when describing migration and, on the other, the needs and doubts of those who daily interact with asylum seekers and people requesting international protection. These operators, who perfectly know the difficulties related to migrants’ reception and integration ask for a greater attention to this phenomenon, which is fundamental for giving better information.

3. What are the new aspects of the project Nautilus 2?

Nautilus 2 aims especially at deepening and giving more value to the work carried out by the previous project, in order to strengthen reception policies and making them more appropriate to the needs expressed by the beneficiaries of international protection. The working group headed by Connecting People is made of the same subjects involved in Nautilus 1 and sees also the participation of the consortium Interpreti Traduttori Consorziati .
This year also questionnaires will be distributed in the single contact centres in order to gather more information and details on people requesting international protection. Nautilus 2 will be updated based on the empirical evidences emerged during the study carried out last year. In this new project, much more attention will be paid to training which my Department is called upon to provide. For operators working in Italian contact centres, we will organise frontal lectures, seminars and workshop on asylum and civic education. Finally, it will be essential to create a working table on communication, which remains a very complex and delicate field.