First response (Part 2)

In this video we hear from Luigi Corsaro, President of the Italian Red Cross in Sicily. Luigi is in the operations room of the Red Cross in Syracuse. He describes the response of the Red Cross when a boat carrying refugees or migrants enters Italian waters off the coast of Sicily. In particular, he is describing an event that took place during January 2019 involving an NGO vessel called Sea Watch that was carrying people rescued at sea. Luigi highlights the importance of taking particular care of unaccompanied and separated children and always responding to them in a caring, reassuring, and child friendly manner. He speaks about the welcoming attitude of the Red Cross volunteers and how they take care of the children while they are waiting to receive other services.

During the development of this course, in January 2019, the CELCIS team was filming in Sicily, at the same time that Sea Watch was waiting to enter a port. In this video you will also hear from Rita Gentile, who is the Vice-President of the NGO Accoglierete. Rita was also waiting on the beach for Sea Watch to arrive. Accoglierete is an organisation that was created in 2013 to support unaccompanied and separated children arriving on the island of Sicily. A principal activity of the organisation is to provide Guardians for unaccompanied children. You will be able to hear more about this work in Week 5 of the course.

In this video, Rita explains how for many days members of local civil society organisations have been waiting on the beach. They were campaigning so that Sea Watch would be allowed to come into the port and let the 47 passengers, including 15 unaccompanied and separated children, to disembark.

By clicking on the links to both the Italian Red Cross in Sicily and Accoglierete, you will be able to learn more about the work they do.