7 January 2020

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year and thank you to all who donated to the 2019 Holiday Fundraiser! Together we raised over $2,000, which is already going to use to help keep Humanitarian Storytelling alive in the new year.

It was our first time developing a fundraising campaign, after three years of me personally funding the work out-of-pocket with the occasional support of individual contributors.

This initiative was proof not only that we could launch a fundraiser but that you, our readers, believe in the humanitarian documentation we do enough to have made it a success. Thank you.

In the new year we are developing even more initiatives to get funds in the door to sustain us. But before I tell you about those plans for 2020, let’s reflect on 2019.

In February to May 2019 the fieldwork went from Agrigento, Sicily for a very special reunion with Ebrima (Gambia), continued across southern Italy to the tiny migrant enclaves of Camini and Riace; to Cosenza for new meetings and stories, and checkins with some you’ve met before; plus first-time reunions with Ousman and Yanks (both Gambia) since our meeting on Lampedusa two full years before.

It was a year that placed Migrants of the Mediterranean on its firmest footing. It is safe to say that at the start of 2019 MotM was still operating very much as a “project,” driven by passion but without true operational structure. This changed swiftly.

In March I hired the first of what would become a small staff of interns and pro-bono contributors. Nick O’Connell was that first one, whose assistance with editorial and outreach has been invaluable.

You’ve seen his name regularly now across MotM communications and political analysis pieces, the latter of which have been essential for readers to understand the context in which the migration stories I write take place.

He has also assisted with outreach, our social media revamp, and so many other tasks big and small. The most significant of these was the completion of the MotM Story Archive in Italian, a massive undertaking that makes Humanitarian Storytelling available finally to Italian readers––the very people whose homeland we scour for stories. This is important because our writing is as much for Italians as it is about the new people arriving in Italy, and we are proud to be that link between worlds.

In addition to Nick, we were joined by JackMichael Ward (web design + maintenance), Leonardo Urbini (translations), and others in editorial and administrative support. And I am pleased to announce Ying-Yu Alicia joined MotM at the tail end of 2019 as our Asia Correspondent. With her contributions, MotM is slated to expand Humanitarian Storytelling outside of Italy to the Asia-Pacific region, and elsewhere. More about Alicia and her work for MotM in the coming days.

In July 2019 we launched the Open Encounters podcast that gives voice to the people you had until then only seen on the page. The concept for the podcast was to give you a chance to hear each person in their full dimension, and as the recordings continued, for the guests to push the conversation in the direction they wanted.

I will always have questions about the migration experience in Italy as it is defined by the asylum process and other tactical details. But what I learned also in the course of conversation is that the people I profile often have things to say that I would never know to ask.

When I left Gran Ghetto in October 2019, for example, in our exclusive first-hand look at the notorious migrant labor camp in Foggia, Italy, I sensed an unsatisfied silence fall between Peter (Sierra Leone) and I.

As much as I spoke to him about the logistics of life in the ghetto and the emotional impact of being there, I understood when it was all over that there were things he might have expressed differently had he had more control over the questions.

I approach all interviews now with that in mind, even handing over the microphone and recorder to my interviewees to control. The only way we can truly hear and understand the voice of the other is to empower them to express themselves as they wish. It is part of my 2020 goal as a journalist and advocate to put this method into practice.

Look forward to the first Open Encounters episode of 2020 in the coming weeks, wherein Fabulous took the mic halfway through in a fascinating talk with Andrew (Nigeria; story forthcoming) about the hopelessness they describe in their small town, Limatola, Italy, while continuing to wait for documentation they fear may never come.

At the start of summer 2019 I applied for my Italian journalist visa, but by the end of the summer it had been denied, for reasons separate immigration lawyers have agreed are due to anti-immigrant policies in the country. It was a long, difficult process that put my fieldwork on hold (as well as my life in Italy) and gave me a taste of what it is like to wait for documentation from authorities with whom I had no voice.

It was merely a taste of the listlessness and frustration the people I write about experience, and have been experiencing for years. I nevertheless used this time of holding (while my passport was out of my possession) actively.

In May 2019 I observed Operation Streamline hearings in Tucson, Arizona, both a continued comparative analysis of migrant reception between the US and EU, and a show of solidarity for the disempowered Mexican and Central American migrants whose testimonies I bore witness to there in court.

Immediately upon my return to Italy in August 2019, the fieldwork continued in Rome, Padova, and in small, unknown cities like Isernia in the Molise region, and Limatola––where Fabulous and Andrew hail––that lies just east of Napoli.

In September 2019 I visited Malta for the MiniSummit on Migration, where we reported the outcome of proposed EU migrant reception agreements. Taken together, from this the MotM team grew a larger perspective of our mission that forged new relationships with other consolidated organizations in Europe, which we are continuing to build in 2020.

The collective work and lessons of 2019 put us into the development stage of a new branch of MotM, The Beyond, the official blog of Migrants of the Mediterranean, slated for launch in January 2020; as well as new creative initiatives done exclusively with the migrants we profile.

So stay with us as we keep growing into the new year. There are more podcasts and stories of course, just as you’ve come to depend on, and upcoming travel to new parts of Europe for fresh reunions to be had too.

It’s your dedicated support and readership that allows us to keep giving a face and a voice to every #AmazingHumanBeing out there. So on behalf of the MotM team, thank you.

Happy New Year again.

Sincerely,


Pamela Kerpius
Founder
Migrants of the Mediterranean