The Sicilian baker proving integration works
By Tom Moggach
It’s an unlikely setting for a life-changing project: a remote bakery perched high in the Sicilian hills. Men and women who arrived in Italy as migrants are learning hands-on business skills alongside unemployed locals as part of the Sicilia Integra initiative.
This innovative social enterprise supports the socio-economic integration of new arrivals in Sicily. A key focus is the cultivation, manufacture and marketing of organic foods — in this case breads and pasta.
The tutor is Maurizio Spinello, a baker who grew up in the small village of Santa Rita.
Aged 18, he took the bold decision to stay — unlike many friends who migrated to larger towns. Spinello built his Forno Santa Rita bakery on the site of an old cow shed and has now diversified into other wheat-based products with the help of Sicilia Integra.
Spinello has begun to sell his artisanal pastas around the world under the Grani di Gaia brand, made with organic flour milled from ancient wheat varieties grown by a local female farmer. “This way I introduce Sicilian grains around the world,” says Spinello. “What interests me is quality — a small production of highest quality.”
Four new bakers and pasta-makers are taking part in the five-month program. “We are hoping to get jobs either here or somewhere else,” says Mohammed Janneh, 29, tying up his apron.
Janneh arrived in Sicily three years ago after an arduous journey from Gambia. His colleague, Bandiougou Diawara, travelled from Senegal.
They work the afternoon and night shift, learning to make bread. Two others focus on pasta each morning.
The bakery project is one strand of a larger educational programme. Gaia Education, a UK charity, helped to design a practical five-week foundation course exploring sustainable and organic food systems in partnership with the University of Catania in Sicily.
17 refugees and two unemployed Sicilians were trained in the first course in Spring. Afterwards, the participants take work placements at venues such as Forno Santa Rita or local farms.
The hope is that they will either find work with these businesses, create their own social enterprises with partners in Sicily, return to their countries to use these new skills or become educators of other migrants in their own right.
“For me it’s a great experience,” explains Spinello. “It’s an exchange of cultures.”
“I enjoy everything about the work,” adds Janneh. “We are coping. I am hoping it will be better in the future.”
This article was originally published at amaphiko.redbull.com.
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