50 images Created 11 May 2018
Hailù's way
Young boy Eritrean, deaf, Hailù has lived the last 8 years in the refugee camp of Mai-Ayni with his mother and his 4 brothers, in Ethiopia. Escaped from Eritrea like many others, they are among the 500 refugees selected to be transferred to Italy through a safe entry channel.
The CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference) has in fact promoted the opening of a new humanitarian corridor between Ethiopia and Italy that will allow the arrival, by 2019, of 500 Eritrean, Somali and South-Sudanese refugees. Three subjects signed the "technical protocol": the CEI (acting through the Italian Caritas and the Migrantes Foundation), the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Italian Government. Acting in Ethiopia with the precious help of the NGO Gandhi of Alganesc Feassah.
On February 27, a first group of 113 people arrived in Rome, 61 Eritreans coming from the refugee camps in the north of the country, and other South-Sudanese and Somali urban refugees.
With 50 other refugees, Hailù and his family lived their last Ethiopian month in a house rented by Caritas in Addis Ababa, to perform the medical examinations and necessary procedures. Once in Rome, they continued their journey to Cossato, a small city in the north of Italy, the destination chosen for them because here there's a school of excellence for learning sign language, the Comprehensive Institute of Cossato. Not all students are deaf, but all learn the sign language. So it will also be for Hailù and his brothers, and consequently for the young mother.
Caritas will provide them with what is necessary to start the new life: the novelty of the project lies above all in matching the needs of these families with the opportunities of the communities of destination, to respond to situations of vulnerability and increase the chances of success of integration processes.
I chose to tell the case of Hailù because it is emblematic. He had already invented his own sign language, with which he communicates with his mother and brothers. To see him discover day after day a world of deaf people and a true language made of signs, it's fascinating. It is also to see the ability to welcome and help that other children and the school are showing. They are giving a lesson to everyone, in signs.
I started following Hailù from the days before the departure from Addis Ababa, and I'm still doing it.
The CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference) has in fact promoted the opening of a new humanitarian corridor between Ethiopia and Italy that will allow the arrival, by 2019, of 500 Eritrean, Somali and South-Sudanese refugees. Three subjects signed the "technical protocol": the CEI (acting through the Italian Caritas and the Migrantes Foundation), the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Italian Government. Acting in Ethiopia with the precious help of the NGO Gandhi of Alganesc Feassah.
On February 27, a first group of 113 people arrived in Rome, 61 Eritreans coming from the refugee camps in the north of the country, and other South-Sudanese and Somali urban refugees.
With 50 other refugees, Hailù and his family lived their last Ethiopian month in a house rented by Caritas in Addis Ababa, to perform the medical examinations and necessary procedures. Once in Rome, they continued their journey to Cossato, a small city in the north of Italy, the destination chosen for them because here there's a school of excellence for learning sign language, the Comprehensive Institute of Cossato. Not all students are deaf, but all learn the sign language. So it will also be for Hailù and his brothers, and consequently for the young mother.
Caritas will provide them with what is necessary to start the new life: the novelty of the project lies above all in matching the needs of these families with the opportunities of the communities of destination, to respond to situations of vulnerability and increase the chances of success of integration processes.
I chose to tell the case of Hailù because it is emblematic. He had already invented his own sign language, with which he communicates with his mother and brothers. To see him discover day after day a world of deaf people and a true language made of signs, it's fascinating. It is also to see the ability to welcome and help that other children and the school are showing. They are giving a lesson to everyone, in signs.
I started following Hailù from the days before the departure from Addis Ababa, and I'm still doing it.
