Who are the Bridge Builders?
The first workshop of The Bridge Project was the 14 of October 2019 in Palermo and it involved eight participants. During the meeting, we met the actors of a critical moment from a social and work point of view in Sicily. Our friends are young people between the ages of 18 and 30 who live at home with their parents but they would like to find their independence somewhere in the world.
During the day, participants discussed specific skills such as project management and fundraising but also soft skills such as public speaking. Most of them confess that they don’t work very much in teams at the moment but that this is important in order to achieve more important goals. They know that collaborating involves renunciation: you have to give up on some of your ideas to make that of your partner live together and you cannot agree on everything. And that’s why, many times, they tend to do everything individually.
Leaving the Island in order to Come Back
It is relevant to notice that our land, which has always been enriched with dominations from all over the world, today shows instead difficulties in accepting the diversity between the islanders themselves. During the meeting, we understood that the reason that drives us away is perhaps that it is easier to do something if you don’t have to give explanations to anyone.
In Sicily it is also easier when you don’t want to challenge yourself, giving up studying or travelling. The latter two are powerful tools to get in touch with the world and therefore with yourself, to know and share. All the participants in the workshop are studying, everyone has travelled at least once and everyone knew they were there for this reason. Unluckily there are many young people in the conditions of our target who did not attend the meeting because they are far from this kind of moments whose only goal is simply and wonderfully to bring people together.
“In Sicily, even not studying, it could make you a hostile person.”
Skills acquired…
It is necessary to believe in a diversity that unifies. This does not happen in our city because there is a widespread fear of what is unknown. For example, according to the participant Pierpaolo, we are so used to being dominated that we never ask for respect from those we host. He tells us to notice a university citadel colonized by young people from small villages near Palermo. The latter are young people who run away from their families because there is no offer near them, so they choose to study but many of them are not able to respect the surrounding environment, they pollute and Palermo continues to relax, being dominated once again.
Most of them told us how getting out of the Sicilian border for some time was important to understand what to want from their lives.
Most of the participants are studying at the University of Palermo and many have had the opportunity to grow through the Erasmus experience. On the way back they realized they had brought home something new. For example, the sense of responsibility allowed them to interpret the urgency of their goals and the vision of their lives at this moment completely coincides with the vision of work. Or they have understood the importance of being transparent while in Palermo we tend to cover the truth.
“Being lucky enough to travel is a real treasure.”
…and skills shared
Another thing included in the return luggage is, for example, the knowledge of the English language which opens many opportunities in terms of innovation. According to the participant Sebastiano, this is important on several fronts in Sicily. On the one hand because it allows us to communicate with the migrants who land in our island every day and who have a lot of culture to share with us, on the other hand, it allows us to spread information in a universal language like English.
In fact, he tells us that in his opinion it would be very nice to be part of a team made up of people with digital skills to divulge multimedia guides helping people to solve their problems. For example, today we no longer call a plumber, we go on YouTube and watch a tutorial. So if on one hand, Sicily fights poverty because people don’t call the plumber and don’t pay him, on the other hand, digital skills are tools to democratize empowerment.
After their studies some of them will travel around Europe because there are no job opportunities in their field, some of them will not come back but others are trying to build something in this territory to give meaning to their existence in Sicily.
The biggest sense now is that here there is so much need for innovation made of brave people, ready to build bridges but now that we know our builders we just have to wait for the next workshop to stay tuned on the cooperation of this new great team!
“Despite some bad differences that I have noticed I returned to Sicily because there is only one home!”
Another builder
My name is Fabiola Moscato, I’m graduated in Industrial Design and I’m working in the field of graphic design in Sicily where I have a strong orientation to stay in. Thanks to PUSH. and Hanna Rasper now I’m hooked on social innovation with the consciousness that even in the gardens to which nobody pays the right attention it is possible to glimpse the buds that one day, irrigated with passion and willfulness they will become wonderful roses. For me, The Bridge Project is this: to encourage people to be bold and ambitious, like me that now I wrote this article ;-)
(*all names of participants changed)
