A group of 34 refugees (33 Eritreans and a Somali woman) has spent their first night in Italy in a former elementary school in the village of San Lupo, in the Sannio region, outside Benevento (not far from Naples).

They were welcomed by the mayor Irma de Angelis in accordance with the project “Small Municipalities, Large Solidarity”, as part of a wider EU initiative for the 12007-2013 period.

The refugees were also welcomed by representatives from the NGO’s “Connecting People” and the “Amistade Consortium” of Benevento. In the town hall there was a related event attended among others by Soulib Briss and Fabiola Conti from UNHCR Italy. The group of refugees began their ordeal five years ago, traversing several African countries; the group include nine women, two of whom pregnant.

“As mayor and citizen of San Lupo – said Irma de Angelis yesterday – I am pleased to be here today to welcome you and assure you that the town and the local people are happy to receive you. San Lupo, even if small, is generous and all of us will try to help you integrate in our territory”. Orazio Micalizzi, vice-president of ‘Connecting People’, which manages the facility offered in San Lupo as well as the welcome Center where the fefugges were housed before in Salina Grande (Trapani, Sicily), told the refugees:

“Our consortium, with the backing of Amistade, will assure you will get all the services that you need; at the end of the Easter holiday, the various activities provided by the project, starting from Italian language classes, and all the children will be promptly enrolled in local schools and kindergartens”.

Connecting People shall also handle the management of training, socialization and orientation programs, apprenticeships in small artisanal factories and tourism facilities in the area of Benevento. Giuseppe Lorenti, training and research manager at Connecting People stressed:

“the consortium shall ensure for the 24 month duration of the project all services and activities needed to achieve a true socio-economic integration of the recipients, aimed at ensuring them, once the project is over, the greatest possible degree of independence. Apart from the basic housing and foods services, the guests will be given cultural mediation services, social, first-aid and psychological assistance.”

As for San Lupo, it was rebuilt after an earthquake in the XV century on a spur of rock at 500 meters elevation now traversed by a municipal highway linking Benevento to the town of Campobasso. San Lupo is famous for its olive oil but its citizens over the past century have spread throughout the world, from North America to Australia, the country shall now reach, thanks to the newly arrived residents, a total population of some 800 people.

Remembering the 18th century fountain of Capodacqua and, through its saint, the ties to France, the mayor conclude a chat with MISNA saying: “Milca, a nine year old vivacious Eritrean girl, made me smile when she said: yes, I like San Lupo, but I was hoping that it had the sea..” Source(Misna)

Stockholm city council commissioned a study based on a survey of 2.300 students from Eritrea, Somalia, Middle East, North Africa as well as South East Asia.

Most of the students live in the poorer suburbs of Stockholm, which are known for their high number of immigrants. The survey focused on how cultural traditions impact the integration of the teenagers into the Swedish Society.

According to the survey, the findings show that teenagers face restrictions in their upcoming, because of cultural traditions, which in certain cases violate Swedish law.

For example 23% of the females responded, that they are expecting to remain virgin until they get married and that they are not allowed to have a boy friend.  Moreover, 16% of females said someone else is deciding who they are going to marry.

Amongst the sample of boys 7% responded they are not allowed to decide who to marry on their own. What makes integration difficult and slows down educational development is that 10% of girls and 4% of boys say that they are limited in their private lives compared to their fellow students.

Most probably the same might apply to many other urban cities in Europe with a high density of people with immigrant background. In many Eritrean families of the first generation girls were treated somehow stricter than their male counterparts.

The more the families appear to be integrated, the less the restrictions due to culture and traditions, especially amongst the Eritreans living in the second or third generation in the West.

Having worked in East Europe for several years and as an Eritrean, I came across a quite unique and somehow familiar experience of life. It reminded me of my childhood in the early 80s, when my parents migrated to Germany during the liberation struggle in Eritrea.

Eritrean families used to be rather huge in size at that time. The German authorities settled us far out from every civilisation in a small village near the boarder to France. Hence, the villagers were quiet curios’ and astonished about the newcomers, which I did not understand at that time.

We were the only black family within a radius of 31 miles from the place we were living. No wonder that we were an attraction in many ways for the local people.

Some of the locals felt sorry, and tried to make life easier for us by inviting us to their home or helping us with formalities. I just remember one funny occasion, when our whole family was invited to a nights out at our neighbours place. When we arrived at the place there were many friends and relatives of our neighbours.

To my surprise they had placed three or four African drums at the middle of the living room and expected us to play them. In astonishment we looked at each other not knowing how to avoid disappointing our neighbours. So we started drumming the typical Eritrean “gualia” rhythm, which is no major science to do.

Honestly, no one of us new how to get African vibes and beats out of these drums. To our relieve people got bored quiet soon and the hosts changed the venue to the hobby room in order to show dia slights of their last holiday.

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Stockholm, Sweden: Politicians and media in Stockholm claim, that Eritreans in Sweden have to pay a 2% tax on their net income to the Embassy of Eritrea in Stockholm. Fredrik Malm, a member of the parliament for the Liberal Party states; it is unacceptable for other states to recover tax from Swedish citizens. He further claims that the monopoly to collect tax in Sweden is owned by the State of Sweden. According to the newspaper Expressen people who do not adhere with paying the tax will be imprisoned when they return to Eritrea for holiday or for visiting relatives. Having fact checked the story, this is not true and people visiting Eritrea are not being imprisoned, because they do not pay the 2% tax. Having visited Eritrea many times without paying the tax, it has never happened that the freedom of movement was limited by being imprisoned due to not not paying the 2% tax. The tax is rather seen as a voluntary contribution from the Eritreans living abroad to the countries struggle for independence. The only limitation one has if not paying the tax is, that it might be difficult to do business or purchase property in Eritrea. read more:

Stockholm, Sweden: Adiam Dymott has Eritrean parents and was born in Sweden. She never was pushing it to be successful with her music, but destiny helped her to make it into the Swedish Music Charts with her just recently produced first Album. Her music reflects the different influences she came across as a professional musician and as a young fan of soul, hip hop, and rock music of the so called “generation x” time. read more: