21 Mar 2017

Here are a few of the short stories about MIGRATION written by the Italian students, as part of the preparation stage for C1 meeting:

STORY 1
Hello my name is Destiny, I’m very young. I was born in Cara, Capo Rizzuto’s island.
My mother came from Augusta (Africa) on 24th December. She is very young, she was born in 1990 and her adventure for the salvation began when she was pregnant. It was then, when she started her long journey, she realized that she had to emigrate for long.
There were many difficulties during her hope’s journey, but they haven’t caused problems.
I was born with natural childbirth, in San Giovanni di Dio hospital in Crotone (Calabria). Now my mother and I are both in good health
The operators of the center have brought new hosts who have been surrounded by other children. They currently reside in these structures which are seven in all and arranged for people from 4 months to 12 years old, so they are separated from the adults.
Actually, I can say that Cara hosts about 900 people.

STORY 2
I moved from Istanbul to Birmingham, via Paris.
As a 17 year old in Istanbul, my life was unbearably hard. I was brutally seperated from my birth mother at the age of 13 by my dictatorial father who went on to abuse me and my brother in every possible way. We were regularly tortured by him and threatened with death. I have had the most incredible journey of escape under this threat.
After an extremely risky process I managed to make my way to Paris. Aged 18, I was terrified. I could not speak French and had no experience of travelling alone. I spent two years in Paris, I found a good job and my own flat. During holidays in England I met the father of my three children. It was a huge surprise when I found out I was pregnant and I had no idea what to do. I decided to stay in London. I wanted the baby to grow up with the father and his family as I did not have a family myself. It felt precious and I became very emotional.
We got married and now we have three beautiful children. They were born here and they are British. I have not put them on a Turkish passport as I still have nightmares about my father finding me and my children.
STORY 3
Enrico Fermi was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century.
He was born in Rome in 1901. As a boy he enjoyed learning physics and mathematics and shared his interests with Giulio, his brother. After Giulio’s death in 1915 Enrico escaped into his studies.
He went to Pisa for his university studies.
In 1924, he returned to Rome as a professor of physics. He gathered the brightest minds in Italy in his
theoretical physics group, the Via Panisperna Boys.
One of his former students was Emilio Segrè of Jewish descent, compelled to settle down in the US because
of the Fascist anti-Semitic laws barring Jews from Italian university positions.
In 1938, Fermi won the Nobel Prize in physics. After receiving it, he decided to emigrate to NY with his family, because of the racial laws which also threatened his wife Laura of Jewish descent.
In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting World War II. The United States was drawn in after Pearl Harbor’s attack.
The bombardment of uranium by neutrons was studied by Enrico Fermi while nuclear chain reactions had been foreseen by Leo Szilard.
They proposed the idea of a nuclear reactor with natural uranium as fuel. Fermi led the construction of Chicago Pile-1 , the first nuclear reactor.
The first nuclear chain reaction was initiated within CP-1, on Dec. 2, 1942 starting the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bomb to end the war.
Fermi died in 1954 of stomach cancer. Aware that his work carried risk, he considered the outcome so vital that he forged ahead with little regard for his safety.

STORY 4
I am Akhila, I am 24, from India. When I was 20 I moved to Europe with my little brother and sister .
We had to go away from our country because of the poor conditions of my family. My parents were old and unhealthy. So I had to work very hard and look after my brothers! I’ve been working since I was five. I sewed shoes all day, and I didn’t receive enough money, so one day I decided to move to EUROPE, to have a better life. I have planned this journey for years! We left Bhopal and went to Nuova Delhi, there we didn’t find a place to stay in, we suffered a lot, we slept on the streets. After a long, long journey , we reached Italy. There we stayed at a facility of the Catholic charity Caritas. Now I work as a nurse and my brothers and I have got documents to stay here. My little sister studies at Secondary High School , and I am proud of her.
This country has given us freedom and the life of our dreams.

STORY 5
My name is Maurad from Afghanistan, I escaped from war in my country. I was tired of feeling afraid.
I travelled first through Iran into Turkey on a small wooden boat with adults and children. I have seen young and old people, and children die during the way to Europe. After a long, terrible, journey I arrived in U.K., where I tried to get a job , but I didn’t have the necessary documents. I tried to reach Germany too, where one of my friends lives, but there I couldn’t find a job. Later I went to Italy, hoping to get papers and a better life.
Now I live in an old house with other migrants of various nationalities. I have a job, I look after an old person . Here I have nothing special! I cannot see my mum nor my brothers , but I feel free to walk on the streets without being afraid. I hope all the people like me can have a better life!
THANK YOU ITALIA
STORY 6
GASPAR VAN WITTEL/GASPARE VANVITELLI
This great artist was a naturalized Italian citizen from the Netherlands. He was born 1653 in Amersfoort, where he studied painting; when he was 20, he moved to Rome where he died in 1736. The painter came to Italy following the famous practice of the Grand Tour, which would reach its peak in the mid eighteenth century.
Van Wittel was the first real landscape painter in art history. His goal was that of representing reality without interpretations nor feelings. To achieve this, he employed a portable camera obscura. Thanks to this tool, he could project the image of what he wanted to represent on an opposite surface, where it appeared upside down and blurred. After being rectified and sharpened with lenses and mirrors, it was reflected on a sheet of wax paper screen or on a frosted glass and then the artist could proceed with tracing over.
Van Wittel moved to Naples from 1699 to 1702 hosted by the Spanish viceroy. This city inspired him to paint some of his finest works. During the years in Naples, his wife gave birth to Lodewijk van Wittel. Thus, not only was Gaspar the forerunner of landscape painting, he was also the father of one of the most important architects of the eighteenth century: Luigi Vanvitelli.
The young man initially followed his father’s footsteps, yet, later, he realized that his true path was architecture. Perhaps it was just thanks to the time spent with van Wittel and the buildings he saw realistically represented by his father, that Vanvitelli managed to plan and build la Reggia di Caserta, one of the first examples of Italian Neoclassicism.