Get Information to Migrants and Refugees in Italy

Last June, Internews started this project on Global Giving to provide critical information to refugees and migrants, especially children travelling alone across Italy. With your donations, the WeWorld team and Internews were able run an incredible six-month long web radio project in Ventimiglia, a city on the French-Italian border.

In 2017, more than 100,000 people arrived in Italy from the Libyan coast, and it is estimated (unverified--since data on this is not available) that at least 20,000 migrants and refugees have tried to cross into other EU countries. In Ventimiglia, the area between the railway bridge and the highway bridge is scattered with small tents, huts and beds set up by migrants of all origins trying to cross the mountains to France to continue their journey to northern Europe. This informal camp under the main bridge is where the Yalla Yalla project was born.

With poor living conditions and episodes of violence erupting between migrants in the informal camp, Yalla Yalla staff decided that this was an important area to start the project. Although volunteers provided the basic services - blankets, food and hygienic kits, these supplies barely covered the needs of the people living there. They also needed recreation, information and communication.

The Yalla Yalla Radio information hub was set up in key locations that provided services to the migrant community: a parking lot in front of a church; meal distribution sites, and more. The radio hubs provided reliable programming to the community every afternoon for four months with news and information about services available to them in Ventimiglia.

Yalla Yalla radio averaged 30 listeners and participants on its live programming five days a week every week. The programs were in Arabic, French, and English about where to find medical assistance, legal assistance or food distribution areas. In a matter of weeks, Yalla Yalla radio became a place where legal practitioners from different NGOs could easily access people in transit, especially those vulnerable groups who needed immediate support. This included many migrant mothers, unaccompanied children, and families with children that were left to take refuge along the Roya River in temporary self-made shelters with unhygienic conditions, after Gianchette’s Church, where many were staying, was shut down.

Even with hundreds of people taking shelter in churches, in the government and Red Cross camps, and under the bridge in Ventimiglia, stable internet for migrants to reach out to their families and keep on top of news was a rare commodity. The Yalla Yalla radio broadcast sites also provided a free and stable internet connection to in-person listeners. With accessible internet access migrants could connect with their loved ones and stay on top of the news in the EU and their home countries. It also gave them access to information about migration laws, regulations, and their own rights.

Throughout the project the team maintained constant two-way communication with the migrant community to ensure that radio programming was engaging, relevant, and useful, as well as serving as a platform where people could voice their opinions and the challenges they faced as migrants. The Yalla Yalla team even conducted a series of deep and touching interviews with migrants, where they shared hardship of their journey to escape to Italy. Because of their daily presence, Yalla Yalla was able to overcome the mistrust many migrants had in media and connect with them on a human level, allowing them to share their own experiences with each other in a dignified way.

Beyond the informative, actionable information and the stable internet provided, the team realized that what the migrants needed and wanted most during this period of waiting and distress, was entertainment and connection. WeWorld included music performed by a Sudanese and Chadian rapper who came together over their shared talent. The program even began to include games that would help migrants learn more about their basic rights and migration laws in the region in an entertaining way. To measure the impact of the web radio, the Yalla Yalla team distributed a survey to many of the migrants near the bridge. The results of which showed that all the migrants sheltering under the bridge knew about Yalla Yalla, and that internet access and music programming were the most appreciated services.

This project proved the ability of radio to create two-way communication that informs programming and gives vulnerable communities a voice. The web radio successfully brought the local and migrant communities together and allowed other NGOs to build strong relationships of trust with the migrants as well, improving the provision of aid services to those in need.

Without your donations, this project would not have been possible so Yalla Yalla, WeWorld and Internews would like to thank you all for your support during this project!

Check out more about Yalla Yalla Radio at their website: http://www.yallayallaradio.net/