by Pamela Kerpius
Italy Correspondent & Founder

17 February 2020

“This man supposed to be a dead man right now,” Philip said about his friend Richard who fell into the sea on March 5, 2017 just before they were rescued on the Mediterranean.

Seven others were knocked out of the inflatable boat and drowned in front of them.

“It’s God,” Richard (Nigeria) said, explaining how he was still alive. That was on Lampedusa when we met for the first time––now, almost three years ago.

And like the report on Philip’s homelessness in Livorno, Italy from earlier this month, Richard nor I could have dreamed he’d still be uttering the same plea to God in the name of surviving his daily life today.

We spoke today, in fact, via video call from Livorno, where he was in the apartment he shares with four others, including a roommate with whom he even shares a bed.

“A grown up man like me sharing a bed with another grown up man…” he trailed off. “But I don’t have any alternative.” Richard knows he is one missed rent check away from also being on the streets like his friend Philip.

He is desperate for work in a city and country that has little to offer. He drafted a resume and has submitted it to employment agencies and local businesses. Nothing has hit yet, and Richard has to be prepared for the fact that it may not in the months to come.

Recently, he went to a clothing factory in the city, a jacket maker, and introduced himself for work. But the man told him he has five kids, two of them living at home, and all of them unemployed too. How could he give Richard a job when he can’t provide them for his own family?

“Sometimes you shed tears,” Richard said, when he interacts with the Italians who don’t want him around. “Some are very good, but most are racist. They tell you fanculo, and go back to your country.”

So the reality has been a combination of selling sundry household supplies––cleaning rags and pocket tissues––to patrons leaving the supermarket. He earns fifty cents or one euro per item.

Sometimes he still has to beg for change.

It was deep into the afternoon in Italy when we spoke today, but he hadn’t eaten yet. He luckily acquired a package of something to cook after his day of work, but otherwise he can’t afford food.

You’ve heard Richard’s voice in the Open Encounters podcast, but today the tenor of it was cracked with frustration. “I am living for God,” he said, feeling there was no one else taking seriously the struggle of his daily life.

He said he would never kill himself. He said he would remain here for God even as his own identity was being erased.

These are the extraordinary psychological extremes migrants are struggling with to survive in Italy and the EU. Please see Richard. Share this now with others in your community––especially if you are reading this in Italy.

Be the hope for humanity on the ground in Livorno, and in every city across this country that is actually a place of immeasurable opportunity.

It is only together that we can make change, and the first step toward a better, more inclusive society is seeing each other as valuable and as equals. We are all the same. Our only survival is to see ourselves in the eyes of someone else.

Continue to follow the #ThroughTheirEyes Instagram series, where we will share more of Richard’s story as he keeps us updated.

And please donate. Every contribution helps us keep this platform open to Richard to tell his essential story. He, among all the others we profile on MotM, deserve to be seen and heard and we will not stop until they are.