Emergency Festival, “Here’s how I help migrants”

Bader Belrhazi is a cultural mediator of Emergency and answers the phone from his workplace. “They are among the greenhouses of Ragusa,” he says as the line drops a couple of times. At the Festival organized by Emergency in Reggio Emilia, he participates in a meeting on migration. “Videos will be shown about rescues made at sea and what we do next,” he explains.

Care as a fundamental right and value to reconstruct the meaning of common life is the theme and leitmotif of the festival which runs until Sunday 5th September.

Three days of meetings, also broadcast in streaming on Emergency channels, on health, equal and unequal, but also war with the analysis and testimonies of the crisis in Afghanistan, migration, work, science, environment.

What Bader gives is “help and guidance”. «We bring people to the health service, we help them fill in the forms, we bring them closer to local services. It is a job that has remained the same over the years. However, a lot of experience has been added ».

They are women, men and children. I come from North Africa, but also from the sub-Saharan area, Albania and Romania. In the greenhouses of Ragusa where he has been working since June 2019 he has helped regular and irregular people who were in the reception center. For those who work in countryside they organized a transport service. The joy comes from cases like that of a Romanian man. «He had two hernias, he didn’t know how to orient himself in the health service. We helped him along the way and now he walks and can work ».

Health is the central theme of the festival that wonders how this has become the litmus test of an unequal and unbalanced system. “The death of Gino Strada we were deeply saddened, but also through this festival we want to continue to carry on his idea of ​​care that does not only concern health, but a way of living together, more just and in solidarity ».