About forty men, coming from different countries, mostly from the Maghreb and Africa, as well as from Bangladesh and Pakistan worked in the gardens of via Calatafimi and surrounding streets in Monza on Saturday 20 April 2024 during the spring cleaning. Thus the city realized that there were and already are sixty guests in the controversial Triante reception center (here is the story).
Migrants clean the gardens
A great desire to do and give back to the city that welcomed them: spades and rakes in hand, headphones to listen to some music, so the boys made themselves available. From early Saturday morning, about thirty were already in the field to join the Monza volunteers. «Today many of us are doing the course to become bricklayers, for example I have been in Italy for two years and I haven’t found work, it’s nice to be able to do something today», confided a Tunisian boy, while another hasn’t stopped since cleaning the gardens of dirt and logs not even to pose for the group photo.
“Today there is no work for you”, they then said jokingly in slightly broken but clear Italian to the Sangalli workers who had arrived only to take away the bags of waste collected by their strong arms. Instead, they were there to supervise Vittoria Mamerti of the Municipality Participation Office, the municipal councillors Ilaria Guffanti and Sergio Visconti and the coordinator of the San Carlo Consulta Rinaldo Mandelli. «Each person has a story of their own – says an operator who follows the now 60 guests of via Monte Oliveto in Monza – Almost all of them come from other Cas in Brianza and have already been in Italy for some time, some then find work and so he puts aside the money to rent a house together with other compatriots and in the end there is always a bit of turnover.”
Age and stories of migrants
All men, those welcomed at the CAS in via Monte Oliveto, are aged between 18 and 40 on average, but there is the one everyone calls the old Sage, white beard, 55 years old, a life left in Bangladesh to start again in Italy, who is older. Not much is known about him, he speaks little, but he lets his hands go like the others, to clean the gardens where the children play from cigarette butts and dirt.
Most of those welcomed today carry out training internships in the construction sector, indulging their skills and passions a little, but there are also those who dream of becoming drivers. «It happens that we see some guests arrive with scars on their faces who tell stories of mistreatment, but they don’t always want to talk about it. Some have left their country because they were left without family. Everyone has a different story. Today I’m here to learn Italian and get settled”, explains an operator, just before the mayor Paolo Pilotto you come to visit them, handing over a certificate of participation and a snack. A few words, a couple of jokes. Even the mayor wants to know from them if they are doing internships, if there is anyone who teaches them Italian. There is a Tunisian who speaks well and answers for everyone, together with the centre’s operators. Someone jokes with the “boss” as they nicknamed the mayor: «At Cas the food is good, especially when there is rice», reveals a Pakistani boy, before starting to clean a small piece of the city that welcomed him.
