TAHOMÀ

The Social Garden is an initiative that arises from the need to strengthen contact between migrants seeking asylum and the land that gives them hospitality. A strengthening that passes through the most authentic activity of relationship with the earth: agriculture and the cultivation of edible plants.

The project starts from the consideration that migrants come to look for a country where not only food, but legality is the basis of social peace and sharing. To add to this is also the passion that many of the children hosted show for agriculture: most of them claim to have been farmers or to have worked in the cultivated fields.

Tahomà offers a plot of land located in Bibbiena, where everyone can come to plant, cultivate native or exotic specialties and above all share experiences and skills. The garden is easily accessible, so everyone is given the opportunity to go there at any time, and is managed by a small number of managers, identified precisely thanks to their inclination and passion for looking after the land.

But what is grown in the social garden? various species of tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, lettuce, courgettes, potatoes, karkadé, peanuts and aromatic herbs.

Tahomà A.P.S. was born in 2016 to respond to one of the major needs expressed by the Casentino context in recent years: the reception and integration of the growing community of asylum seekers from West Africa. In fact, the host community does not initially find adequate tools to address the meeting with newcomers. Tahomà started working by mediating between the uncertainties of the local community and the directives of the institutions, becoming a bridge of connection and sharing between the Casentino population and asylum seekers. Likewise, asylum seekers need to be followed step by step along their path undertaken in Italy, to let them know their position and their rights. (Residence permit, legal training, Police Headquarters and Prefecture, regulations to follow, perspectives)

The migrant reception project was launched in March 2016, when the Association won the announcement launched by the Prefecture of Arezzo to welcome migrants seeking asylum in the Casentino area. The model adopted by Tahomà is the regional one of widespread hospitality, whereby guests are immediately placed in apartments with a maximum capacity of eight people, distributed throughout the Casentino area. To date, the guests reside in Bibbiena, Soci and Partina.

Not only widespread acceptance, but also integrated: that is, that is not limited to the emergence of the phenomenon, but which looks beyond, even to the lasting aspects and future potential. In fact, Tahomà promotes in-depth Italian courses for asylum seekers within its headquarters and numerous complementary volunteer activities. To date, among the many successes achieved, we mention the achievement for some guests of the middle school license and the professional title of Basic Assistant.

Project realized thanks to the contribution of the Tuscany Region - Socio-health orientation project aimed at foreign women residing in Casentino

The project aims to ensure that foreign women residing in Casentino (AR) can have access to hospital health services in a customary manner; the precise objective of this project is the reduction of the costs of emergency medicine and the possibility of carrying out continuous monitoring of diseases thanks to specific, active and conscious prevention.

The aim of the project is to achieve a general improvement in the health conditions of foreign women thanks to an increased awareness of diseases, prevention and treatment.The idea arises from the observation that improper access occurs at local and provincial level. to emergency health services (such as first aid) and above all there is a lack of information on hygiene and the prevention of diseases, especially infectious ones. The tendency to inadequate use of the health care proposal mainly affects the foreign female population, in particular as regards the sphere of maternal, reproductive and children's health and, last but not least, domestic violence. Specifically, the condition of foreign women residing in the area turns out to be critical, not only socially, but also and above all at the level of health indicators: it is in fact foreigners who suffer most from problems such as premature birth and low birth weight, and to resorting to voluntary termination of pregnancy in a higher percentage. This discomfort should be dealt with immediately through very specific methods, which invest skills and time in training the women themselves and in bringing them to the knowledge of prevention.

Tahomà wants: To be a physical meeting place between women belonging to foreign communities in the Casentino area. Offer foreign women training that will make them more aware and able to achieve their own autonomy in accessing health services. To create, with and for the local ASL, a valid point of reference for linguistic and cultural mediation problems in the doctor-patient relationship. To train cultural mediators previously identified during the ifocus group. Repeat the cycles of training meetings to allow a comparison also with the new foreign users who have recently established themselves in the area.

During the whole cycle of focus groups, the participating women will be informed that the operators will be available for additional help. At the beginning of the training, an official presentation of the Listening Desk will be made and the services it offers will be illustrated: accompaniment to health facilities, help in booking exams, mediation, free legal advice. The purpose of the help desk is to allow women to go beyond distrust of the doctor and beyond their own interpretation of the pathology (often influenced by beliefs and traditions).

The project aims to reach, as an indirect beneficiary, also the ASLs. In fact, due to the recent and significant migratory phenomenon, the medical staff of the local health authorities found themselves facing problematic situations due to linguistic and cultural barriers and mistrust due to completely distant approaches to medicine. The operators of the Tahomà association, during the accompaniment of asylum seekers hosted at their CAS to medical examinations, encountered difficulties in communicating with the staff of the ASL. The difficulty lies, first of all, in meeting visions of the body, health and the sense of care that are very distant from the Western medical approach. In this regard, Tahomà identifies a possible help to the ASL in the figure of the cultural mediator who will be female and who will facilitate the understanding of the health system for foreign patients and will strengthen their trust in medical personnel (who, to date, encounter enormous difficulties in dialogue with foreign patients).

A walk with Tahomà is a support project in favor of elderly people who want to unhinge false stereotypes about migrants by offering a free service: voluntary accompaniment in shopping at the supermarket, in which asylum seekers concretely help before, during and after shopping .

More concretely, Tahomà provides a free service in which asylum seekers housed in the structures voluntarily accompany local people to do their shopping at the supermarket or market. The operators of the Association take care of driving the vehicle that will transport everyone to their destination and which, above all, will accompany them home. The volunteers are chosen because they have a good spoken Italian, sensitive and above all interested in lending a hand to those in need.

The involvement of asylum seekers is not only voluntary, but it is also not limited to the work of carrying the trolley and heavy bags: their presence also wants to be a company for the person, a moral support, a new knowledge with which to share thoughts and interact , all during one of the most common activities of the routine: shopping.

Both the operators and the young volunteers wear a recognizable uniform, and are provided with badges with the name. Tahomà strongly believes in the visibility of this project, above all to transmit trust and security towards those who take part in it.