Spring 2015

People come and go. Many people.

Many people can remember the situation in 2015. Many people arrived all over Europe looking for protection and safety. Many were also stranded in Bolzano and gathered at the railway station. The situation was out of control, the provincial offices responsible were overwhelmed and no one had a concrete plan on how to deal with the situation. As a result, many people wanted to help the arrivals in this intolerable situation. More and more volunteers at the railway station began to actively help – that was us, Binario 1.

While we initially only distributed tuna and water, we gradually organised ourselves with the other volunteers. We were given a room that gave us the space we needed to feed and welcome so many people. The actual waiting room was closed instead of offering those arriving a warm place to rest.

‘In the beginning, we weren’t recognised as such because we were all women and had no idea at all, but we quickly learned how it all worked.’ And we were also quickly recognised by the province. We were invited to coordination meetings and started regular get-togethers for volunteers to come together, exchange ideas and organise.

The years that followed

Supporting those who stayed and deficiencies in the system

Although most of the stranded people wanted to continue northwards, many also stayed in South Tyrol – intentionally or unintentionally. In the years following the huge influx, the main focus was on supporting precisely these people, as the institutional organisations did not have enough capacity, they were outside the ‘quota’, not allocated by Italy, but had come here on their own. Above all, language courses and support in writing CVs and looking for work were intended to help people gradually gain a foothold in South Tyrol and start a normal life.

In addition, there were always significant experiences that strongly influenced and inspired future projects and ideas.

For example, we once took donations to a site behind the railway station in Bolzano because we were told that people were living there in abandoned trains. We were shocked by the conditions and deeply disappointed. The politicians always gave the impression that everything was working and under control, but we realised that this was not true at all. One reason for this is that the Italian system stipulates that asylum seekers with positive asylum decisions have to leave the camps very quickly. And many of them end up on the streets.

In particular, seeing women with babies and small children on the street time and again because there were apparently no official places for them in emergency accommodation shocked and angered us beyond belief. It ultimately motivated us to look for emergency accommodation spontaneously and on our own initiative. The Protestant church in Bolzano was one of these first emergency shelters, which repeatedly took in people in absolute need and continues to do so.

Through such and similar situations, the idea of offering structured and organised sleeping places for people in emergency situations gradually developed. The idea behind it was basically to support people who are not considered and excluded by the system on the one hand, and on the other hand to point out the abuses in this very system – to show politicians how easy it can be to find more places to sleep in the centre of Bolzano and make them available to people.

We made a point of offering not only a place to sleep, but also guidance, counselling and support. For example, we often worked together with psychologists and doctors.

Since 2017

Ambitious and structured accommodation projects

These insights into the problems in Bolzano led us to launch more ambitious projects to support people in need by providing accommodation, counselling and training. 

In winter 2017, we opened a large house in Carducci Street, generously donated by Heiner Oberrauch, where we were able to offer both short-term accommodation and longer-term rooms for emergencies. This huge project was run by many volunteers and aimed to get people to the point where they were self-sufficient. In the end, it was a huge leap in the dark for us, but it worked, it helped many people and we achieved our goal: to show how simple and feasible it can be to give homeless people in Bolzano a future worth living. The house was not intended to be a permanent alternative to other camps – it was a project with a planned end date, March 2019. We wanted to encourage and inspire the city and regional authorities to start such a project themselves. Unfortunately without success.

We also provided advice and helped with the documents, were at the Questur every day to help the people there to find their way around the Italian administration and to assert themselves. We spoke to the social welfare offices in the city and country, were present in networks for social, health and legal issues and much more. All from our office in Carducci Str.

Since 2020

Project Dorea

After we had to give up the house in Carducci Street at the end of 2019, the need for support and accommodation for vulnerable people was not resolved. Frasnelli offered us the Zeilerhof in Gries. We were happy to move into the first floor, initially with women and families. Then only single women lived there and the Dorea project was born. Now the women in Haslach live in two flats and we have a house for families in Blumau.