Nick O’Connell
+1 224 500 2707
info@migrantsofthemed.com
www.migrantsofthemed.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Personal Documents of Migration,
Now Translated in German

The fragile journey stories of individual migrants documented on Lampedusa
since 2016 are now available to read in German.

ROME, ITALY 19 November 2020 – Migrants of the Mediterranean (MotM), the Humanitarian Storytelling organization, introduces its Journey Story Archive now translated in German.

Migrants of the Mediterranean understands the value of people in the migrant community being seen, understood and integrated with society, and believes its archive of journey stories are the first step in making sure that can happen.

The organization is proud to make them available to the German-speaking public that has such a vital influence on the EU culture, economy and policy.

Years after the peak migration flow of 2015, many Europeans remain doubtful of the human rights abuses and extreme terror that unfolded across the Central Mediterranean Sea that people in the migrant community have suffered, as well as how the logistics of it unfolded.

The journey stories are a record of that. Migrants of the Mediterranean aims for a more complete historical record in its documentation.

The organization’s methodology ensures a moment of dignity restored to the people who have been hurt and exploited. The people it profiles are personally met and greeted upon arrival – or later in the course of fieldwork in Italy, Germany and the greater EU.

It is an exercise in compassion that enables personal connection, a honoring of the migrants’ fraught journeys, and a building of trust and empathy.

Many of the people in the MotM migrant community stay in touch with its correspondent, who continues to follow them as they venture across Italy, and now into Germany, France, Belgium and elsewhere. The organization stays with them and available to talk and connect, sometimes when no one else will.

Being a migrant is an isolating experience, especially in a nationalistic-trending and COVID-19 world.

In spite of Republican Donald Trump’s defeat as the anti-immigration candidate in the recent US presidential election, and the specter of two viable coronavirus vaccines on the horizon reported over the past two weeks, borders continue to stand between communities.

The Migrants of the Mediterranean mission is to support the people they meet and to always stay connected, so they are never alone.

The Journey Story Archive has been developing since autumn 2016 on Lampedusa island, and its expansion to Italian, Spanish (limited), and now German is aimed to help facilitate understanding about the migration journey among European citizens both wary of outsiders within their national borders and armed with misconceptions about African people and their objectives now that they are in Europe.

MotM organizes followup “reunion” stories that document living realities of the asylum and integration process, details that can be useful to scholars, professionals in the media and in public policy.

Migrants of the Mediterranean hopes that with further light on these vulnerable individuals, those in charge of helping institute societal change can do so in a way that reflects what is true to our shared living experience.

In January 2020 the organization launched the complete Journey Story Archive in Italian, for the first time allowing Italians to connect with people in the migrant community.

Now, Migrants of the Mediterranean invites you to read its migrant profiles in German. New translations are published ongoing, and soon, on a rolling basis as stories from fresh rounds of fieldwork become available.

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About Migrants of the Mediterranean
Migrants of the Mediterranean (MotM) is an Humanitarian Storytelling organization that documents the individual journeys of people who have crossed continents, countries, desert and sea from their countries of origin to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, where they are brought post-rescue after escaping Libya. They are also greeted increasingly across greater Italy, Germany and the EU.

The primary mission of MotM is to give dignity to the world’s most vulnerable and to ensure a platform where they may be seen and heard. MotM creates an account for the historical record, and tracks its subjects – some since 2016 – documenting all issues of the migrant experience in an effort to inform public policy, scholars and the media, and to provide a stable platform for migrants – the most marginalized of people – to find voice and, finally, home.