We Cultivate Integration: Flowers and Fruits in the Land of Asylum
We Cultivate Integration: Flowers and Fruits in the Land of Asylum
Launching of an innovative project, resulting from the synergy between the Vincentian Volunteer Groups, the Congregation of the Mission, the Tre Fontane Cooperative Society, the non-profit Linaria Association and some individuals.
Photo: Michela Pasquali.
Because of the 400 years of the Vincentian charism – recently celebrated with the jubilee that gathered in Rome at the International Symposium to representatives of the numerous Vincentian Family Worldwide – the realization of the project “We cultivate integration: flowers and fruits in the land of asylum” was possible, thanks to the synergy between the Vincentian Family, the Social Cooperative Society “Tre Fontane,” the non-profit association Linaria and Mrs. Margherita Grasselli. The motto of the Jubilee: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me…” (Mt 25, 35) has in this initiative a concrete example of what it truly means to welcome.
The project consists in the improvement and development of approximately two hectares of uncultivated land, property of the Congregation of the Mission in Rome, in Via dei Ca-passo 30, in which special botanical varieties will be cultivated, which can respond to a market so far little known, but surely expanding. It will allow to qualify the professional skills of a group of asylum seekers and holders of international and humanitarian protection, who reside regularly in Rome, with the aim of their social and labor insertion in the city. An initiative that is, at the same time, an experiment due to its evident social, economic and environmental impact, with the potential to become a replicable pilot project in other national urban realities.
Author: Elena Grazini.
Photographs courtesy of: Michela Pasquali.
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FYI. The Vincentian Volunteer Groups is the Italian name for the International Association of Charities (AIC).