A man of Moroccan origin has gone from being a migrant to working as an operator in a reception center in Florence, thanks to the Caritas Solidarity Foundation. This is the story of Amine, who arrived in Italy in 2018 with a law degree.
“At first, arriving in Italy was difficult,” he said in a statement released by Caritas. “I had left a lot behind and had nothing ahead of me. I had to start over from scratch. But deep down, I felt it was worth trying.”
His encounter with the Caritas Foundation came through linguistic mediation work with a young woman arriving from a delicate situation. From that experience—”The lives of the people you welcome inevitably come into contact with your own,” Amine explains—a collaboration with the Foundation was born. This commitment later turned into a stable job. Today, Amine is part of a team operating in a reception center and also overseeing scattered housing facilities. His role is that of a health operator, but as he explains, “There’s no fixed line; it’s not mathematics. Every day you learn something new; every person challenges you again. In many of the people we welcome, I see something of myself. But I also know that everyone has their own story, their own scars. Some have lived through situations much heavier than mine. When you go home at night, you realize that certain stories stay with you. I try to be strong, but every now and then the tears come anyway.”
“Florence welcomed me,” he concludes. “And today, thanks to the Foundation, I can give back a little of the good I received. I feel part of something. And even when the days are hard, I know it makes sense to be here.”
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