Despite the war the Oselya group is continuing its fight against poverty

Emmaus Oselya is continuing with its work to support vulnerable people whilst also continuing to lead its income-generating activities. This group fights to offer dignified living conditions to the thousands of vulnerable people who are living in the Lviv region as well as to the victims of the ongoing conflict.

For several years Emmaus Oselya has distributed 150 hot meals to vulnerable people on Thursdays. In 2023 the group has distributed over 5,700 meals thanks to the funding provided by the Ukraine Fund.

In addition to all of this Emmaus Oselya also offers various services at its new day centre that was opened in January 2023 and that was largely funded by the Ukraine Fund (a fund that has been built thanks to the contributions of many Emmaus groups from all across the globe). In the 9 months that the centre has been open it has done a great job: the centre has welcomed over 1,346 people, including 492 internally-displaced persons.

Welcoming more people within the community

Since the start of the conflict Emmaus Oselya has been hosting 10 internally-displaced persons as companions. Since 2021, due to the pandemic and then the outbreak of the war, the group has doubled the number of people it welcomes, up to 30 companions from 15.

In September 2023 the group learned of the death of Nazar, a former companion of the community. He died in the fighting at the age of 29. A portrait of Nazar can be found on Facebook. Just to remind you that 15 companions have left for the front since the conflict broke out in February 2022.

Defending human rights / Migration News Ukraine

The birth of the new Emmaus Romania Federation!

On 1 June the three Emmaus groups in Romania met in Iaşi to finalise the creation of the Emmaus Romania Federation, the new national organisation for the country. Thanks to this shared body the three groups will be able to overcome the geographical distance that separates them in order to better promote Emmaus’ values and to work together to ensure that their voice is heard on the national level.

Gelu Nichitel, the leader and founder of Emmaus Iaşi, will be serving as the first Chair of the federation whilst Jean-Philippe Légaut and Rodica Bizu, the Chairs of Emmaus Satu Mare and Emmaus Targu Jiu, have been named as Vice-Chairs.

The first Emmaus group was created in Romania in 2001 when Emmaus Iaşi joined our movement. Emmaus Satu Mare joined in 2015 before Emmaus Targu Jiu joined in 2017.

The initiatives led by the 3 Emmaus groups in Romania

Emmaus Iasi

Officially opened in 2001 by Abbé Pierre, the Emmaus Iaşi foundation has been working to support the homeless and vulnerable in Iaşi, which is in the north-east of Romania, for over 20 years. Outreach work and “doing the rounds” is at the heart of what this group does. The companions are housed in various community houses. In Iasi the companions work in the second-hand shops and are actively involved in the group’s solidarity programme. Meanwhile at the group’s site in Popesti the companions look after the shop, the animals and the crops as well as leading carpentry and sewing activities. Lastly, at the Belvedere site the group owns 20 hectares of land used for cereal farming, orchards, market gardening and small-scale livestock rearing and Emmaus Iaşi also runs construction, carpentry and sales workshops at this site.

Emmaus Satu Mare

Emmaus Satu Mare hosts around 20 young people aged 18-25 years old, most of whom came to the group from the country’s child protection system. The group supports these young people in their personal and professional development, it provides them with a safe and secure environment where they can start to plan for their futures thanks to personalised career plans that they develop with the team at Emmaus Satu Mare. This group is based in the north-west of the country.

The ‘friends of Emmaus’ Targu Jiu

The ‘friends of Emmaus’ Targu Jiu association is an association made up of volunteers and staff members that is based in the south-west of the country. The group collects objects and also collects clothing from the 4 containers set up across the town. The association then sells these second-hand goods and uses the proceeds to support the activities of a children’s centre as well as to help vulnerable young people to find work/training.

News Romania Tackling Poverty / Solidarity

The members of the new Romanian national organisation in Iaşi in June 2023. © Emmaus Iaşi

An exchange of best practices on working with wood: feedback on the event

In mid-September several European groups met in Krakow, Poland, to talk about the topic of wood – how to renovate wooden objects, how to re-use them, sanding techniques, etc. The Brat Albert group hosted 15 participants from all across Europe who went away with new ideas and plans to lead group projects in the future! Manon and Iosif from the Satu Mare group in Romania told us a little bit more about this informative 2-day event…

First of all, could you tell us a little bit about yourselves and about how Emmaus Satu Mare works?

Our names are Iosif (warehouse manager) and Manon (educator). The objective of our association is the socio-professional integration of young people who are leaving the child protection system. What we offer is an integration programme that is well-rounded and that covers many different aspects. Our goal is to help them move towards independent living, to help them to acquire vocational skills through practice in the workplace and to provide them with safety and stability by offering them housing.

What does your group do in terms of its work with wood?

We often receive pieces of furniture in pieces that we then assemble. If not all of the pieces are present we then try to replace them with other spare pieces that we have in the workshop. If we are unable to replace them and we cannot find any other solutions to fix it then the piece of furniture will be sold to be used as firewood. We don’t do a lot of creating wooden pieces ourselves for the time being. But recently our young people, supervised by Iosif, made a table for 6 people on top of an old sewing machine! At this best practice exchange we learned a lot from the other participants.

What did you take away from this exchange of best practices?

We learned about different techniques for sanding and varnishing that we had never seen before.

But above all this exchange allowed us to meet the representatives of 6 groups from 4 different countries. Given that we were only a small group of around 15 participants the atmosphere was very welcoming and it was easy to chat to people!

Circular economy / The environment News Poland

Iosif showing off his sanding technique before applying a French polish finish. © Emmaus Europe

Arrivals in Lampedusa

Solidarity and resistance in the face of Europe’s reception crisis.

Following the arrival of a record number of people on the move in Lampedusa, civil society, including Emmaus Europe, expresses in a statement its deep concern at the security response of European states, the crisis of reception, and reaffirms its solidarity with people on the move arriving in Europe.

More than 5,000 people and 112 boats: this is the number of arrivals recorded on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Tuesday September 12. The boats, most of which arrived autonomously, originated in Tunisia or Libya. In total, more than 118,500 people have reached the Italian coast since the start of the year, almost double the 64,529 recorded during the same period in 2022 (1). The accumulation of numbers does not make us forget that, behind each number, there is a human being, an individual story and that people still lose their life trying to reach Europe.

While Lampedusa has long been a destination for the boats of hundreds of people seeking refuge in Europe, the island’s reception facilities are lacking. On Tuesday, the chaotic rescue of a boat caused the death of a 5-month-old baby, who fell into the water and immediately drowned, while dozens of boats continued to dock in the commercial port. For several hours, hundreds of people remained stranded on the pier, without water or food, before being transferred to the Lampedusa hotspot.

The hotspot, a triage center where those who just arrived are kept away from the local population and pre-identified before being transferred to the mainland, with its 389 places, has no capacity whatsoever to welcome with dignity the people arriving on the island on a daily basis. Since Tuesday, the center’s staff have been completely overwhelmed by the presence of 6,000 people. The Red Cross and staff from other organizations have been prevented from entering the facility for “safety reasons”.

On Thursday morning, many people began to escape from the hotspot by jumping the fences due to the inhumane situation that was being experienced. Meanwhile, in the face of the Italian authorities’ failure to provide a dignified welcome, local solidarity has taken over. Many locals have mobilized to organize food distributions for those who have taken refuge in the town (2).

In addition, different organizations are also denouncing the political crisis in Tunisia as well as the humanitarian emergency in the city of Sfax, from where most of the boats leave for Italy. Right now about 500 people sleep in Beb Jebli Square, with hardly any access to food or medical assistance (3). Most have been forced to flee Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Chad, Eritrea or Niger. Since the racist statements of Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, many migrants have been expelled from their homes and jobs (4). Others have been deported to the desert where some have died of thirst.

While these mass deportations are ongoing and the situation in Sfax continues to deteriorate, the EU agreed to a new migration deal with the Tunisian government three months ago in order to cooperate “more effectively on migration”, border management and “anti-smuggling” measures, with an envelope of over 100 million euros. The EU agreed to this new deal in full knowledge of the atrocities that the Tunisian government has carried out, including the attacks perpetrated by the Tunisian coast guards on migrant boats (5).

Meanwhile, we observe with concern how the different European governments are closing their doors and failing to comply with asylum laws and the most basic human rights. While the French Interior Minister has announced his intention to strengthen controls at the Italian border, several other EU Member States also declared that they would close their doors. In August, the German authorities decided to stop the selection processes for asylum seekers arriving in Germany from Italy under the ‘voluntary solidarity mechanism'(6).

Invited to Lampedusa on Sunday by the prime minister Meloni, European Commission President Von der Leyen announced a 10-point action plan that confirms this securitarian response (7). Reinforcing controls at sea to the detriment of the obligation to rescue, increasing the pace of expulsions and stepping up the process of outsourcing borders… all old recipes that the European Union has been implementing for decades and which have proved their failure, only aggravating the crisis of solidarity and the situation of people on the move.

The undersigned organizations call for an open and welcoming Europe and urge the EU Member states to provide safe and legal pathways and dignified reception conditions. We demand that urgent action be taken in Lampedusa and that international laws that protect the right to asylum be complied with. We are devastated by the continuous deaths at sea caused by the EU border policies and reaffirm our solidarity with people on the move.

(1) Reuters, “Italy’s Lampedusa island hit with record migrant arrivals”, September 12, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italys-lampedusa-island-hit-with-record-migrant-arrivals-2023-09-12/

(2) Maldusa, “Lampedusa’s Hotspot System: From Failure to Nonexistence”, September 14, 2023, https://www.maldusa.org/l/lampedusas-hotspot-system-from-failure-to-nonexistence/

(3) Statement “Urgence humanitaire au Gouvernorat de Sfax : la société civile tire la sonnette d’alarme face à une situation inacceptable”, September 14, 2023, https://euromedrights.org/publication/urgence-humanitaire-au-gouvernorat-de-sfax-la-societe-civile-tire-la-sonnette-dalarme-face-a-une-situation-inacceptable/

(4) Migration-control.info-project, “Mass deportations and EU externalisation in Tunisia: Press Review and Critics”, August, 2023, https://migration-control.info/en/blog/mass-deportations-and-eu-externalisation-in-tunisia-overview-press-review-and-critics/

(5) Alarm Phone, “Deadly policies in the Mediterranean: Stop the shipwrecks caused off the coast of Tunisia”, December 19, 2022, https://alarmphone.org/en/2022/12/19/deadly-policies-in-the-mediterranean/

(6) La Repubblica, ” Migranti, da Berlino stop ad accoglienza dei richiedenti asilo dall’Italia” September 12, 2023, https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2023/09/12/news/migranti_da_berlino_stop_ad_accoglienza_dei_richiedenti_asilo_dallitalia-414254801/?ref=RHLF-BG-I414254188-P2-S1-T1

(7) European Commission, “Press statement by President von der Leyen with Italian Prime Minister Meloni in Lampedusa”, September 17, 2023, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_23_4502

Defending human rights / Migration European Union Italy News