Embrace Diversity: Refugee Integration through Care of Creation
The JNRC is grateful to United Thank Offering (UTO) and to Bishop Mark D.W. Edington who has given JNRC the opportunity to implement the Embrace Diversity: Refugee Integration through Care of Creation project.
The Embrace Diversity: Refugee Integration through Care of Creation project aims to bolster the integration efforts of our guests by giving them the opportunity to participate in a Roman community-led initiative.
In line with the aims of the Refugee Employment Integration Project and the Leadership program held at JNRC, Embrace Diversity: Refugee Integration through Care of Creation seeks to provide our guests with multiple channels to grow their understanding of the local community and the role they can come to have in it.
Embrace Diversity: Awarness Campaign
By recognizing each other as neighbors and taking responsibility for caring for our environment, we cultivate gratitude and strengthen our social fabric. The Embrace Diversity: Refugee Integration Through Care of Creation Project emphasizes the role each individual can play in the social and economic growth of their community.
Through this awareness campaign, we aim to inspire others to embrace diversity, promote integration, and take action for a more inclusive and sustainable future.
Join us in creating a world where care of creation fosters stronger communities and brighter opportunities for all.
The Project
Embrace Diversity: Refugee Integration through Care of Creation derives from shared goals among organizations such as JNRC, ItaliaHello and Retake Rome, who assist refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Rome, Italy. It also derives from the support of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe and the kind contribution of UTO. By involving guests of the JNRC within the initiative of Retake Roma, dating from July 2020, this project actively engages the broader Roman Community towards one goal: caring for the public spaces of Rome for the benefit of all. Refugees, local residents and parishioners come together to clean parks, public spaces and engage in gardening at St. Pauls Within the Walls.
Throughout this project, the JNRC will coordinate and deploy an awareness campaign on social media. It will seek to expound the importance of community by highlighting the way in which collective action can create lasting bonds and deepen engagement with social issues which affect us all. The campaign will encourage awareness of ecological issues which are present in our everyday life, and hopefully encourage people to take action towards their solution. Additionally, the campaign will promote the value of diversity and the benefits of inclusive initiatives which involve individuals from all parts of society.
Creating Lasting Care
Participants come together once a week, throughout one year, and work between 10 am and 2 pm to clean up Roman public spaces. The aim is also to enhance parks and places that represent a heritage to all and to encourage aggregation through the enjoyment of such wonderful spots.
This benefits the JNRC’s guests by involving them in local life; creating moments of communion and care, creating the opportunity for intercultural sharing, creating a shared project ultimately increasing opportunities for integration. A greater connection with the city and its inhabitants goes hand in hand with a greater connection to the environment and our Earth.
Indeed, caring for the planet and caring for each other are inextricably linked!
How it’s going. updated March 2023.
The Embrace Diversity: Refugee Integration Through Care of Creation project has been running for over 6 months, with nearly 30 sessions completed, over 100 participants and 550 bags of trash collected.
"The guests of the JNRC are excited about this opportunity. For many of them, the group outings have become an event they definitely should not miss out on. And this is invaluable in terms of community ties and mental health. We are aware that this is just a drop in the ocean, but it is still a valuable activity to combat social fragility.”
- Mauro Bifulco, Project Coordinator
UNITED THANK OFFERING
UTO encourages people to notice the good things that happen each day, give thanks to God for those blessings, and make an offering for each blessing using a UTO Blue Box. UTO’s focus of the granting process this year was "Care of Creation: Turning love into action by caring for God’s creation to protect the most vulnerable who will bear the largest burden of pollution and climate change.”
