I am an immigrant in Finland, as well as a mother through international adoption. I have regularly met, witnessed, or heard of racial discrimination and racist attacks here in Finland. Unfortunately racism and intolerance spread throughout borders. They are a growing issue in Europe and the Western world. It’s a fear-based reaction to diversity that definitely has no space in a globalised world.

Italy in particular has faced an incredible peak in immigration in the past few years. Alongside with it, a wave of violent  intolerance spurt and grew to radically change the dynamics of everyday life. I daily read about racist aggressions or acts of discrimination on newspapers, not to mention the online harassment I spot. It’s the tip of the iceberg and, more alarming, it’s openly supported by key government figures. It’s impossible not to notice the parallel with Finland. The “True Finns” Party has collected consensus for years, up to becoming the 2nd biggest party in the country. Even though they publicly save face hiding behind a centrist position, they are nothing short than a nationalistic party (I mean, the name!). Just at the start of 2019, their association of young supporters officially commented the good news that grants for international adoptions had been incremented by protesting our children should come second to support for fertility treatments and international adoption shouldn’t be forbidden but definitely discouraged. Right.
Good news is the large majority of people is growing tired of these bullies. They scream loudly to make up for the fact they are few. Back in Italy, some fellow adoptive mothers had enough and decided to take action by founding “Mamme Per La Pelle”. The association was started in November 2018 with the clear goal of promoting the value of diversity. Board member and co-founder Adriana Pumpo agreed to an interview and shared about their important work.

It all started with a viral Facebook post by Gabriella Nobile, published before the elections in March 2018. Gabriella is an adoptive mother of two African children. She addressed Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega Nord party and currently Italy’s Prime Minister, and his racist declarations and policies. She shared her children were growing terrified by the day: “My 7 year old daughter before bed asks me ‘If the guy who speaks ill about us (Salvini, ed.) wins, will we be sent back?’ before crying inconsolably.”. Her 12 year old boy was regularly harassed on the bus by Salvini’s supporters and addressed with slurs as “sh- n-”, “go back to your country” “you’re here to steal from us or kill our women”. She concluded her message by accusing Salvini and other politicians to employ fear and racism to distract people from all the disgrace they were bringing to her country. The post quickly got the popular attention and reached national news outlets and television. Gabriella, Adriana, and other mothers understood this was only a start. Mamme Per La Pelle was born.

Adriana explains, “We started off as an association of adoptive mothers. Our sons were discriminated based on their skin color or ethnicity. We wanted to take a stand and defend them.”
The same harsh reality they lived through encompasses also other types of multicultural families, “for example foster families, transracial families, immigrant families.”

“We have a growing number of immigrant mothers among our members. We want to give them a voice.”

One of the services offered is first contact in cases of racist aggression, harassment, or discrimination.
“We receive hundreds of reports every month, especially at school. They range from long stares on the bus suffered by school-age kids to systematic racist bullying. Harassment includes being thrown into a dumpster, being followed home on a daily basis, being told ‘go back to your country’. We recently received a report of a 20 year old man being denied access to a nightclub because of his skin colour, while his white friends were allowed in.”

Adriana explains how perception changes over time: “Racism changes with the victim’s age. I am an adoptive mother of two African children. When they came home, everyone thought they were cute and we experienced no issues. Now my oldest is 14 years old and looks even older, and it’s all starting.”

Through the first contact service, victims receive emotional first aid and can be advised on how to proceed, for instance if it’s recommended to alert the authorities and how to do it. Volunteers step up all the time, offering their time and their expertise. “We even have professionals like lawyers and psychologists.” The offers for help and support for the initiative continuously flow in “We were surprised to received several accounts of support. People felt less alone in this. When we started this, it felt like an avalanche.”

“We gave a name to an issue that was covered in silence.”

Mamme Per La Pelle started building a database of these reports to collect experiences and statistics on racial discrimination and attacks in Italy.

Another domain of action for the association are events to spread the message of inclusion and valuable diversity. The young association has already won a couple of big challenges in that regard.  The first successful event they organised was the photography exhibition ‘One family, all colours’ (“Una famiglia, tutti i colori”) with the support of renowned artists like Tom Watson and Francesco Guerrera. “We recruited several adoptive families and he created the portraits. Guerrera hand-drew stories on top. The message was, who better than a multicultural adoptive family can teach you about inclusion?”

“If my chocolate-colored child calls me, a pink woman, mom… what greater love can there be?”

The exhibition was launched on February, 26th 2019 in Milan and was a huge success. “We received requests from all over Italy and it will now go on tour. It will tour in Bari, Palermo, Florence, Rome, and more. That was our official visual introduction to the world.”

Mamme Per La Pelle was also a board member in planning People2March, the phenomenal response to a racist manifestation supported by the Italian government few months before. The latter, called “Italian people first” (#primagliitaliani) was held in Rome on December 8th, 2018 and gathered around 40 thousands participants. People2March, taking place in Milan on March, 2nd 2019, witnessed 250 thousands taking part under the slogan “People first” (#primalepersone). Mamme Per La Pelle opened the march with a banner saying “The world we want is a story in full colours”, held by adoptive and multicultural families. Adriana remembers that day, “It was like seeing the entire world in a street. It was a powerful message”

The association has ambitious plans for the future, starting by kicking off local chapters to expand their network. “We are trying to build a national network of mothers, through local chapters. We want to promote inclusion, diversity, cultural richness. We are launching several activities.”

Since the best medicine against racism is education, they have a project ready to launch in schools. Adriana says, “School is the forefront of society, a classroom is a scale representation of the world. We need to teach that diversity is always valuable.
“The project will pilot in May 2019 in two selected schools and hopefully will be adopted by many more throughout Italy in the following school year. The project called “Ugualmente diversi” (“Equally diverse”) includes several initiatives, depending on the group’s size and the kids’ age. One activity is an open dialogue forum moderated by an expert. During the discussion some kids have a chance to speak out about their experiences with bullying. Other sections use creativity and art, like watching and discussing movies, theatre and dance workshops, and more. The events, centred on the topic of inclusion, can be one-off or regular.

I have no doubt Mamme Per La Pelle will give a powerful contribution to change the perception of diversity in Italy. My hope is to see a similarly strong response in other countries around Europe, including Finland, to racism and intolerance. I firmly believe most people share the vision that diversity is valuable, and every person on this planet has a right to human dignity and equal opportunities.

Disclaimer: the interview to Adriana Pumpo was carried out in Italian language. Her words were translated into English to the best of my ability, but may carry the risk to slightly distort the original message. The interviewee is not responsible for this.