The Why did we initiate this project?

We initiated this project because of these important challenges as well as opportunities that we were confronted with as advocates who promote the welfare of the migrants and the families left behind:

• FWC as well as the UN INSTRAW, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), ATIKHA studies showed that the majority of Filipino migrants (70%) are unable to save for their long-term goal despite long years of hard work abroad. (¹)

• Migrants and the families left behind are suffering from family and social issues (dependency, communication gap, family break-up, early marriage of children, lack of valuation of education, consumerism, etc.) as a result of separation with both economic and social consequences for them.

• Filipino migrants in Italy have difficulty accessing services and are unable to utilize the social services provided by the Italian government. Consequently, Filipinos are somehow “invisible” to the Italian public sector. Their absence is misunderstood as a sign of independence and as a lack of problems, when in reality they should be being regarded as a “silent community suffering from within”.

• Psychosocial issues bear down on the migrants and the families left behind however, there are very minimal intervention of government and other stakeholders to address such issues.

• Migration has minimal impact on development of source communities. Migrant remittances have a lot of potential for development. However, national, local government and other stakeholders involved in migration do not coordinate their initiatives and no synchronized strategic planning on minimizing the cost and maximizing the gains of migration.

• Migration corridors exists between Europe and Region 4 and specifically in Laguna and Batangas, there are about 50,000 working in Italy, especially in the Province of Rome. This provides an opportunity to work on both sides of the migration corridor since we believe interventions should involve both the migrants and their families as well.

• There is interest amongst local government of Region 4, local government of Province of Rome, banks, NGOs and cooperatives in providing services for migrants and their families.
 

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- UN-INSTRAW, IFAD, and FWC (2008) Gender, remittances and development: The case of Filipino migration in Italy

- Charito Basa and Rosalud Jing de la Rosa (2004) Me, Us and Them: reality and illusions of Filipino domestic workers. FWC project in partnership with IOM-Rome under the EC EQUAL programme “The Image of Migrants in Italy through media, civil society and the labour market”

- ATIKHA and Balikabayani Foundation (2001) Coming Home: Women, Migration and Reintegration