Where the Rubber Meets the Road: When Migration is not just a Subject, but a Human Struggle for Global Justice

Growing up in a semi-ex­tended family in a rather homogenous Roman Catholic community in the South of Malta, I knew the norms and behaviours expected of me, es­pecially those related to gender and social class. However, ever since I was little I knew my path would take me beyond Malta and I was prepared for the reality that I would not be able to meet the expectations of my family and community. I embraced these struggles and in return I received the gift of friendship and community with people all over the world. Today I am married to a Ghanaian, Ahmed, and together we pastor an international evangelical Christian church in Malta, New Life Christian Centre. Ahmed is also the Director of the Foundation for Shelter and Support to Migrants (FSM), which he set up in 2010 to provide servic­es for male asylum seekers. After completing the Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Mediterranean Security Pro­gramme offered by the University of Malta and S-CAR in 2013, I started working as a Project Development Manager with FSM, where we are embarking on projects that focus on vulnerable migrant groups in Malta and their needs. Ahmed and I have three children who are very much part of our work, and who carry this legacy in their life and fu­ture in Malta.
    
Our work started in 1997 when we migrated to Bel­gium to study in a Christian Seminary, during which time we worked with a Filipino community made up of domestic workers. It was difficult for us as non-EU migrants to inte­grate in Belgium, especially as parents of one child with a second on the way, due to restrictions on employment, so­cial and health services. My situation was partly resolved when I returned briefly to Malta for the birth of my daugh­ter, but there were many migrant women who could not do the same. Through our many encounters with migrants, Ahmed and I became aware of the needs of undocumented and irregular migrants who were living and working in Bel­gium and, as a result of their status, at great risk of poverty, abuse and neglect. In the midst of these struggles the church provided a place of safety for many different people to come together and share their lives. We started teaching, organiz­ing church ministries, and educating leaders to understand the various needs of men, women and children in their com­munities.
    
Problem solving is very important in the church con­text. Migrants usually have many issues in their personal lives, families and communities due to the lack of infor­mation, confidence, and resources necessary for addressing problems on their own. Working in a multicultural setting in a church requires knowledge and the experi­ence of learning to problem solve in such a diverse context, especially in how to address gender and inter-generational issues. Although in­ternational churches always face the possibility that groups leave to form their own group usually based on cultural similarity, it is often the case that homogenous groups also experience internal conflicts. Sometimes church members may grow tired of the monotonous is­sues within their group and want to find a more interest­ing platform from which to grow, learn and find support. Therefore it is important for international churches to keep a healthy balance between multi-cultural expression, and the need of specific groups to express their own culture and language. In Malta this became the model for our pres­ent church where people learn to appreciate other cultures, while creating spaces for the expression of one’s own lan­guage and culture.
    
Returning to Malta in 2001 was a difficult time for our family. Re-integration was a humbling process considering that we lacked the resources many people expected us to have. I was pregnant with our son, Ezekiel, and I found it particularly hard to return because my life experience had changed me, and I felt that people in Malta would not un­derstand or accept this change. During this same period, boat arrivals from Libya started increasing, carrying large numbers of asylum seekers mostly from sub-Saharan coun­tries. Ahmed and I started visiting detention, which is a closed camp where all migrants were kept, except children and vulnerable persons, for a period of up to 18 months. Although the situation has improved today, I can remem­ber for many years the miserable conditions in which these people were kept, and the various risks people were sub­jected to because of these conditions.
    
Because pregnant women were allowed to leave deten­tion, men and women sometimes made arrangements in order for them to be able to leave detention as a ‘family.’ The stories of many asylum seekers reveal this reality, and that progressively these arrangements were made in Libya, so that women got pregnant early enough to be allowed to leave detention on arrival to Malta. This situation made it difficult for pregnant women leaving detention to integrate and work in Malta, because of the lack of access to flex­ible childcare services, and because many men abandoned these relationships on getting their freedom.
    
In 2008 I started an undergraduate programme in Social Policy at the University of Malta, and while studying I used the internship opportunities of the course to continue working in various aspects of the migration field. I worked with Malta Red Cross in detention, and also with a local development organi­zation, KOPIN, in designing and applying for projects for the empowerment of Somali women in the open centers. In 2011 I took advantage of an international exchange programme, to spend a semester studying at George Mason University while working with Farmworker Justice in Washington DC, an orga­nization that advocates for the rights of migrant farmworkers. On returning to Malta I focused my Social Policy dissertation on the experience of Filipino domestic workers in Malta, as this was the first undergraduate research of this kind. The purpose was to expose policy gaps and group vulnerability to academ­ics, Filipinos, organisations and relevant authorities. Today Ahmed and I continue our work, supporting and empowering vulnerable migrants and their communities. Conflict resolu­tion studies can be very beneficial for Malta, but more needs to be done to connect the benefits of this programme with the expansion of strategic conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Malta and in the Mediterranean region.