Upon their arrival in Italy, people applying for international protection have the right to be inserted in a reception project. Despite this, it may happen that when the person submits the application for international protection, there are no places available in the reception projects active on the territory. The person is thus forced to live in the street while waiting to be granted a spot, in a state of high marginality.

 

For this reason, together with local institutions and other third sector actors, we opened a dormitory for homeless asylum seekers in Casa San Francesco, in Spini di Gardolo, a facility that already is a place of cohabitation and exchange between university students and refugees. Every year, the dormitory hosts more than 60 asylum seekers, granting them a humane and safe space, while they wait to receive the reception they are entitled to.

 

When a spot becomes available, or if there is already a free one at the moment of the submission of the application for international protection, the person enters one of the ministerial reception projects for asylum seekers active on the territory.

 

Among the ministerial project we are in charge of, there are those related to the so-called Extraordinary Reception, which concerns people hosted in a number of areas of the Trento Province. What distinguishes our work in this frame is the fact that none of our reception projects takes place in big centres. Each beneficiary is inserted in an apartment or in a small facility, so that his or her social inclusion is facilitated. This approach is in line with the so-called “widespread reception”. In recent years this approach has undergone strong cuts following ministerial and local government’s dispositions. Such cuts have compromised many positive integration experiences.

 

Another ministerial widespread reception project we operate in is Una Comunità Intera, which originated in 2019 from a partnership between the Archdiocese of Trento - Fondazione Comunità Solidale, and several associations devoted to reception, in response to the reduction of spots in the facilities of the Extraordinary Reception.

Centro Astalli Trento, Casa Accoglienza alla Vita Padre Angelo, ATAS, Villaggio del Fanciullo SOS and Cooperativa Villa Sant’Ignazio work in a context of widespread reception, investing in the autonomy journeys of asylum seekers so that they can integrate in the territories where they live. The main actor of this project is the community of Trentino, which recognizes who is in need of help, and takes care of him or her. A community which not only shares a place with refugees, but its present, and above all its future.