Our current district. Adding one extra lady: Angela, the mother of the Bishop. She likes to wear her old badge and pretend she is still on a mission. She is a character. One Sunday the Bishop was giving a talk in Sacrament meeting. She yells out from the 2nd row: "You are talking too much, let other people have a turn!" This district is a fun group. We invited them over for a district dinner and they turned the tables on us and invited us over to the church and they are going to cook dinner for us! How is that? That is certainly one way to my heart. (See dinner photos below)
Scovilles who served in Italy (on left side) were in Rome for a few days before they left for their home in Colorado. I already miss them. They are the only people in the world who can completely identify with our mission b/c they did the same job in Sicily. We spent hours on the phone comparing notes and trying to figure out 'things'....we had good laughs and good talks and always felt their support and comradeship. This was their 2nd mission, their first was in Ghana but they had to leave early b/c Elder Scoville was accidentally kicked in the eye. He had surgery and now has to go back to the US to get stitches out of his cornea. On the right side of the photo is the Canfields. They are missionaries from the Frankfurt office who have now moved to Rome to set up the Friendship center. They are the 'go-between' for us and Gilles. It's nice to have somebody who listens and tries to help. They have a big job ahead with the Center as well as our projects and the Scoville projects until reinforcements arrive in August.
Dad and Joel Scoville having a sandwich as they overlook Campo dei Fiori.
I love this shot. Our last day together and this captures what it was like. We had time to discuss projects, thoughts about upcoming projects, ideas, and yes.....what it will be like without them!
We were invited to an expat farewell dinner at Brett and Arianne Woods house. I had no idea there were so many youth and American families in Rome! These people are all from Rome 2 and we attend Rome 1....where we are the ONLY Americans. Rome 2 is full of expats: those that have been here working on the Temple and those who are Embassy people. And everyone is going home this summer. The Temple is basically completed, so the families will return to get their children in school. The Dads may have to stay a bit longer, but not by much.
I need a lesson on how to do 'selfie' that doesn't make you look so weird! Anyway, this couple are the Kneis' and they come from Houston Texas. The is the mission nurse, and he handles all the travel. We spent two days with them in Talamone just for our own get-away and had so much fun with them. They have 5 kids and 20 g.children. They do a family reunion one year and the next year they do a reunion with just adults. Super impressed they can pull that off. What bets do you make? Could we do that???
The master chef: Anziano Sanchez from the Dominican Republic. His food was amazing! He enlisted the help from the others, but he oversaw the cooking. Seriously it was delicious. I think he has potential as a 5-star Michelin cook.
These rock stars are Sorella Wood from Oregon and in the background doing all the dishes is Anziano Melling from Lehi.
Look at the lasagna! They didn't serve sandwiches or spaghetti: No, it was a regular 6 course meal: 2 different kinds of lasagna, meatballs and fried chicken, green salad, mixed fruit of strawberries and nectarines, and then fresh baked banana bread with chocolate chips for desert! Notice it was served on a tablecloth and nice dishes. It was impressive from start to finish.
Our district from front and going left around the table: Mellling (UT), Wood (OR), Silva (CA), Sanchez (DR), Parker (CA), Tom , me, Velardi (FL).
I felt like I had made it to the Celestial Kingdom. Beyond delicious food, no cooking or cleaning, and surrounded by the best hearts you can find in Rome! They really spoiled us. It was a memory maker for sure.
LDS Charities bought 5 computers and a badge making machine for the municipality of Monza. This is a copy of the badge and it has our logo on it as well as the other donors to the project. The project has benefited over 550 refugees.
The counselor in the Stake Pres, the Director of Social Services in Monza, Monia the Stake Public affairs, and Mara a volunteer member of the church who works with the refugees. We are off to visit the 5 sights where the computers are in use.
This is the program that has been installed. It registers the refugees, and then issues them a badge/card. The card identifies when and how the refugee uses social services: bed, shower, laundry facilities, food, clothing.
At this site, the used clothing is cleaned and sorted and stored. The refugee can come and 'shop' with his/her card.
Volunteers, workers, missionaries, Director of Social Services, members of the church all work together to make life for the refugee a bit more manageable. 'Respect' is what is given to the refugee through this program.
All computers have the LDS logo
Anna talks with Elder Herway. She is in charge of the soup kitchen. She is in her 80's and still going strong.
At the soup kitchen, the computer and scanner are being shown by one of the volunteers.
When the refugee enters the building, their card is scanned, and they are admitted for dinner. Same process is used for all the services: for food, clothing, sleeping, laundry, showers, etc. This allows social services to keep track of the needs and to identify those with the greatest need.
The soup kitchen in action
Another location that our computers and badges are being used is with the Catholic church and their soup kitchen.
They were proud to show their facilities and very grateful for LDS contribution of computers
That night we attended a fund-raising activity. It was a theatrical performance. The MVI Director thanked the church publicly for our donation towards their new mobile medical unit.
The fund-raiser activity was a theatrical performance by this talented young lady. It was a one -person show and she had her lines memorized and talked for a full hour. Amazing.
After the show we had a linger longer. Pictured here with Raimondo Castellani and his wife, Anita. The other lady is also Anita. So we were 'The 3 Anitas'. Also in the photo were a couple of the leaders of MVI
The article came out on May 12, 2108 in the Church News. It was fun to have a real live photographer and editor follow us around for a day and a half, interested in our projects and what we have been doing for the past year. We know we were lucky. There are plenty of full time missionaries that never get this kind of exposure to the work they are doing. We were just in the right place at the right time. As mentioned earlier, Sarah (church news editor) and Jeff (photographer) had been traveling with Pres Nelson and when the group had to evacuate Jerusalem, the air space became a premium. Sarah and Jeff were routed to Rome and they were looking for something interesting to report on to use their (diverted) time wisely. Enter Tom and I. Not that we are interesting, but refugee work is interesting and a hot topic in the Church. Documenting the article here on this blog is for my own documenting purposes because I know you have all seen it. The post just prior shows the measly pictures I took while showing Sarah and Jeff around. Amazing how a real photographer can bring all the feelings and colors and emotions into the scene. Now I can always look back on our mission in Rome and these evocative photos will bring it all front and center. I could have never done it on my own. The only improvement I would have made personally is more of Tom and waaay less of me!!!
'Maybe we can help': A look into LDS Charities' efforts to ease the pain of refugees in Rome
LDS Charities missionary Anita Herway plays with Malek and Momo Mana at INTERSOS in Rome, Italy, on Tuesday, April 17, 2018. LDS Charities contributed money to the organization.Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
ROME, Italy — The bold strokes of Fasasi Abeedeen’s pencil record the story of his tenuous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.
A screaming child is passed between adults to safety. A boy, struggling in a consuming sea, is gasping for air. A woman’s lifeless body is lifted from the water.
Wearing blue jeans and a green T-shirt emblazoned with the title that reflects this place — the Casa Scalabrini — Abeedeen shows his sketches to Tom and Anita Herway, missionaries for LDS Charities, who have been in Rome helping refugees for a year. Abeedeen knows he is lucky to be here, creating art in the shade of an outdoor patio.
In 2015, Abeedeen fled Nigeria, where he had just completed training as a sculptor. A political election scandal drove him from his homeland.
“I was forced to leave for my own life,” he said. “I didn’t even know where I was going.”
Traveling through Libya, he gained passage on one of two boats that were to carry passengers across the Mediterranean Sea. But one boat overturned, leaving the journey not only etched in his sketch book, but also in his mind.
Clean cut and clean shaven, Abeedeen looks nothing like the people in his sketches. He is now numbered among a lucky few who have found refuge and inclusion at the Casa Scalabrini Order of the Catholic Church In Rome, Italy. The program and home support 30 refugees — some Christian, some Muslim — each year on their journey to self reliance. With one-on-one mentoring, the residents find jobs, friends and community.
LDS Charities missionary Anita Herway hugs a young refugee at Baobob refugee camp in Rome, Italy, on Monday, April 16, 2018. LDS Charities contributes volunteers, dining tents, and money to the organization.Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
“The real issue will become integration of the people that are all right here in this society, so they can say, ‘I belong to this society.’ ” general director Goacchino Campese said.
It is a program LDS Charities wants to assist, said Sister Herway, explaining the Church has completed one project with Casa Scalabrini and is currently completing a second. “When they leave they are totally self sufficient.”
A place to go
LDS Charities has served refugees in 119 countries and territories since 1985, completing 378 projects in 49 countries alone during 2017, according to the 2017 LDS Charities Annual Report.
The work is part of a much larger program to reach out to God’s children across the globe. In 2017, LDS Charities worked in 139 countries and territories on 2,705 projects with more than 1,800 partners to serve millions of people, according to the 2017 annual report.
LDS Charities missionaries in Rome — and other couples like them in Sicily, Italy and Greece — are responding to a developing refugee crisis, where fewer refugees are entering the area and instead staying longer in Libya and other African nations, said Elder Herway. Many that do enter Italy do not have official refugee or legal status to access services in the country.
Baobob refugee camp, located southeast of Rome about 30 minutes from Casa Scalabrini, serves these least-advantaged refugees.
The “informally organized, but very effective camp” includes more than 130 men and a handful of women and children living in more than 100 tents or shelters.
Demba Sitapha and his cousin Limin Jita sit by the fire in their shelter at Baobob refugee camp in Rome, Italy, on Monday, April 16, 2018. LDS Charities contributes volunteers, dining tents, and money to the organization.Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
Limin Jaita of Gambia and Demba Sitapha of Senegal cook on an open stove and talk about the camp and peace they have found here. They dream of a future where things are better.
“Every time I pray, I pray for the good life,” said Jaita. “This life is poor. I want a place to sleep, a place to come.”
Andrea Costa, who has spent his days serving the refugees at the camp for the last three years, said volunteers have had to learn about the refugee crisis, what it means and how to best help. He admits that before working with the camp, which started in the spring of 2015, he knew nothing about migration. He now tries very hard to listen to those he meets.
“What do they face: the unknown of the future. They don’t know where they will be tomorrow. They know they have a goal, but they don’t know if they will ever get there. They are very, very tired.”
He imagines the Baobob camp — where LDS Charities has donated large food tents and other supplies — to be a “peaceful pit stop,” where people can rest, refuel, and determine their next move.
The LDS Church’s young single adults bring dinner to the camp’s residents once a month. Other Latter-day Saints have found other ways to assist at the camp.
One way LDS Charities has supported the camp and others like it is through a partnership with MEDU, a mobile medical unit. Because refugees in Rome have little or no access to medical care or medicine, it is necessary to take a mobile clinic to them in the camps, said Anita Carriero, project coordinator of MEDU in Rome.
“Many times they don’t know they have the right to health care,” she said, explaining they have cultural mediators who can inform refugees of the possibilities.
Mulu Gheta, for example, has been in Rome for 15 years and three months. He speaks to a 16-year-old boy and urges him to share his story “so he won’t forget.”
Austin Woods, right, plays soccer with a refugee at Baobob refugee camp in Rome, Italy, on Monday, April 16, 2018. LDS Charities contributes volunteers, dining tents, and money to the organization. Woods is planning an Eagle Scout project at the camp.Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
The boy has a bacterial infection on his leg, most likely caused by going more than two months without a shower; the wound is cleaned and dressed by one of MEDU’s volunteer doctors.
The power of partnerships
Because the Church can’t provide services to all refugees, Elder and Sister Herway say they partner with many organizations — including the Red Cross, Intersos, and the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center — to collectively accomplish what cannot be done alone.
Intersos, which prominently displays the LDS Charities’ logo on their vans, is an organization that travels to refugee camps and picks up at-risk populations — women and children and young teenage boys — and brings them to their transitional housing units. While staying at the transitional housing, the refugees get showers, hot meals and time to ponder their goals and next move. Sometimes professionals help them with legal paperwork and appeals.
INTERSOS employee Abdul Bassite lifts refugee Sanssy Mana from a van in Rome, Italy, on Tuesday, April 17, 2018. LDS Charities contributed money to the organization.Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
Valentina Murino, director of Intersos for Italy, said the support of LDS Charities was instrumental in opening the complex in Rome.
That is also felt in the Red Cross camp in Rome where they are using shelters built in partnership with IKEA and LDS Charities. The “Better Shelters” campus was especially helpful this winter when snow fell in Rome.
Gaia Rovelli, who works with the Red Cross in Rome, said when LDS Charities and the Red Cross — who share a “long-lasting partnership” — were envisioning the project “we really tried to see ourselves in [the refugee’s] shoes.”
When looking at the huge refugee crisis, “it is often difficult to put the focus on the need” of the individual, she said.
“We feel like we are offering hope to people,” added Sister Herway. “We are there saying, ‘Maybe we can help.’”
Volunteers at the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center also focus on respect and empathy when providing services to the refugee community, said Drew Dilts, a volunteer coordinator with the organization.
Medical student Edwardo Demeis cleans the wound of a refugee at Baobob refugee camp in Rome, Italy, on Monday, April 16, 2018. LDS Charities contributes volunteers, dining tents, and money to the organization.Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
For the past decade the center is a safe place people can come, get food and find acceptance; no one asks for an identification card when visitors walk in the center.
“They come and charge their phones.” It is a place from which “they are not being ushered away.”
Over the years, many guests asked, “Why can’t you open longer?” said Dilts. “It is a lack of resources.”
So the Church and local members are stepping up to help.
Beginning this month, Latter-day Saints in Rome will sponsor an afternoon “friendship center” — where members will teach classes every day from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on subjects such as language skills, employment training and health care. The goal is to find ways to serve the refugees while promoting self reliance, Elder Herway said.
Dilts said when he started working at the center, he thought people would come for food or work. He has since learned that they want something else. They come seeking “peace of mind” and “respect,” he said.
A refugee’s artwork
That’s exactly what Fasasi Abeedeen’s is trying to communicate with his art work. His sketches — used by him as a guide to create beautiful sculptors — were recently exhibited under the title “My Journey.”
Abeedeen, who studied art at advanced institutions in Nigeria, just needed the opportunity to get his feet on the ground and start again after he arrived in Italy. But, he laments, so many never get the services he received.
A brochure showcases the work of refugee and artist Fasasi Abeedeen in Rome, Italy, on Tuesday, April 17, 2018. LDS Charities contribute funds for two remodeling projects. Abeedeen is a refugee from Nigeria and sculpts scenes about refugees.Photo: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
“I will be very happy if I have the opportunity to teach,” he said. “Some people may not know they have the talent.”
He also wants to continue to explore the feelings that are inside of him and “pull them out.”
Those feelings, he said, continue to evolve.
His first art exhibition in Rome was titled “My Journey.”
Now, however, he is drawn to sharing the plight of other marginalized populations in Rome, such as the homeless.
When completed, that exhibition will be titled “Hope.”
