How does history unfold?
One person at a time.

Working on a personal scale has been the key component to our migration reporting at MotM from the beginning. It’s a unique effort that straddles journalism and oral history-making, done on a one-to-one basis that has the ability to create an unshakable bond of trust between the subject and correspondent. Some of the people we have been working with in the migrant community we’ve known for over seven years. With that much time and shared history, it has the possibility to create a familial sense of belonging.

Gone is the concept of “parachute journalism,” where a non-local reporter drops in to get a few quotes for a migration story then leaves; rather, with Humanitarian Storytelling (what we formally call our documentation methodology), we stick together. For as long as our friends in the migrant community wish to stay in touch and continue developing their stories, we’re there.

The effect is that the records we keep, the stories we write, the catalog of details we track are intimate, textured and authentic to the lived experiences of the people in our community. It’s the kind of human-level information you can rely on to understand the migration phenomenon—no matter where it occurs.

This year our goals at the organization put increased emphasis on defining the finer points of the methodology, a strategic move to ensure the reporting we bring you in the Journey Story Archive is guided by consistency, and care.

You can see it in the stories we reported this year as well, starting with Khalid (Syria) in the Netherlands, who met our Lead Correspondent (and founder), Pamela Kerpius, on the platform of the train station in his new hometown, Waddinxveen in February. He shared the remaining details of his Journey Story as they spent the afternoon touring the town and getting a glimpse into his new life. Since their first meeting in 2022, Khalid’s day-to-day has shifted a lot.

Then, he was still staying at a temporary men’s shelter for people in the migrant community; now, he has his Dutch residency documents and has rented his first apartment. Khalid has a serious following on TikTok and Instagram, where he shares satirical reels (in Arabic) that rabidly mock Assad and his regime. We saw his workspace at home where he brings it all to life. There still wasn’t much furniture in the room, but he promised that when there was he’d have us over for an authentic Syrian meal. “Just forget about your diet for the night,” he had to say about that.

Later, in May, Kerpius met with Moussa (Mali; pictured above) in his home city, Milan, Italy. It was another breakthrough meeting. The last they had together was in May of 2018—pre-pandemic, of course—when he was still waiting for a response on his asylum application. The mood then was heavy, because it was impossible to know when he’d get a response.

By this year, he was in higher spirits, and truly moved with a firmer stride. He was home in Milan by now. He has had Italian residency documents for years, as well as a stable job at the European shipping company DHL. Throughout the pandemic he was in touch with our correspondent, updating her with news from his first return trip home to Mali to visit his family. (His return flight to Milan, on the other hand, was canceled in February 2020 for COVID restrictions, keeping him grounded there months longer.)

But it is not just the time we share with our friends in the migrant community that sets our work apart. It is also the attention we pay to detail. Italy-UK Correspondent, Chiara Iacuzio laid it out from top to bottom.

“Making connections with the people we profile, traveling to towns, cities, countries or continents to meet them; going for a meal or a walk together, actively listening to their stories, asking questions, digging for details and clarifications, building up a chronological narrative, and double-checking the content's accuracy, dates, and locations. Then, proofreading, editing, translating, publishing, and promoting,” she said about our long and careful process, which happens behind the scenes for every story you see in the archive. “All this is to spread awareness and compassion,” Iacuzio said, “all this is to collect and narrate history.”

The MotM approach is also trauma-informed, continued Iacuzio. “We are conscious that for most of the people we profile, this is the first time their story is being narrated, that their experience is being believed and even celebrated. We aim to break cross-societal power dynamics,” Iacuzio says. “Instead, we become the facilitators of a story that is led by the narrator and not by the writer.”

At each stage we are reminded of our mission, to move beyond dangerous political rhetoric and two-dimensional media reports, and instead get at the heart of migration.

“The work we do is delivered on the back-drop of a broadening anti-immigration political ideology reliant on numbers in headlines we see in the news. We redirect attention to the names and the faces, to the stories of life, the experiences of discrimination and isolation, but also the love, the hope, and the kindness we see in the eyes of those that we meet.”

Iacuzio’s forthcoming piece of reporting with a family of young girls from Somalia and their collective Journey Story is in development now—keep your eyes peeled for its release in early 2024. It is essential reporting and stories like hers, and from what you see from every dedicated correspondent at MotM, that is only possible with the generous donations from readers and supporters like you.

Help us make 2024 our most compassionate year yet. There’s still time to get your tax-deductible donation in for the 2023 Holiday Fundraiser – any amount you can chip in gets us closer to our goal. Donate now – and thanks!

With gratitude,
The Migrants of the Mediterranean team