Il Grande Colibrì launched a multilingual information campaign to inform migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees about coronavirus in Italy. The success of this initiative has exceeded all expectations, thanks to the collaboration with other associations and the extraordinary work of dozens of volunteers. The New York Times, Reuters and Corriere della Sera (the most important Italian newspaper) wrote about our campaign. The page is recommended by the Italian Institute of Health, by the immigration departments of the Italian government and the European Commission, by different regions and dozens of municipalities. This was possible only thanks to volunteering (although state and regional institutions should have done this).
On February 23, Il Grande Colibrì was the first organization to publish information in Italy in languages other than Italian and English. Today we are very proud of our page: we cover a great diversity of topics (health standards, legal provisions, asylum procedures, violence against women) in 47 languages (and we will add more), with daily updates. Our materials are of excellent quality and are studied in every detail to meet the needs of less educated or illiterate people. And the collaboration with organizations (such as Les Cultures of Lecco, Naga of Milan, Certi Diritti and Intersos) was wonderful.
All the multilingual information:
Coronavirus in Italy: Videos and Information for Migrants
So far we have produced, alone or in collaboration with other small organizations, 74 informative videos (of which 24 are no longer online being that they are “outdated” because of the new evolving legislative provisions) and 133 handbooks (of which 67 are no longer online); we also reported information produced by other organizations. For our small voluntary association, this is an immense work: our logo with the rainbow hummingbird is present today in Italy and abroad in the leaflets distributed by anarchist groups and parishes, printed by reception centres and libraries, shared by schools and LGBTQIA associations.
Yet this work is not enough. We need your help to spread this information and reach additional people. We need your help to translate and improve the handbooks or to let us know who can make new translations. In recent weeks, we saw how much the information we have produced for Italy has also been used abroad (from associations that follow migrants and homeless people in the United States to feminist groups in Algeria, up to non-governmental organizations that aid refugees on the Greek islands) and we started new collaborations to adapt these materials to different local contexts. In short, we still need you: write to info@ilgrandecolibri.com.
Il Grande Colibrì ODV
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