Roma – In Italy, the phenomenon of small- and medium-sized newspapers targeting foreign communities is on the rise, especially those for immigrants living in large cities such as Milan and Rome. The publications are printed on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis and geared towards Arabs, Phillipines, Pakistanis, Chinese, Albanians and Romanians. They are guaranteed to have advertisers such as telephony companies, large banks, medical centres, dentists, and even neighbourhood stores that sell typical food. The Milan-based Al Jarida, for instance, is an Italian-Arabic newspaper aimed mostly at Moroccan and Egyptian immigrants who live in the region of Lombardy, of which the city of Milan is a part.
The publication, created by a group of enthusiasts led by Marco Sergi, director of Al Jarida and linked to the Medinaterranea association, was launched in September 2008. It was funded by the government of the province of Milan and by the Cariplo Foundation, the social arm of Italian banking group San Paolo and a traditional supporter of projects whose objective is social development.
According to Sergi, in the beginning, there were only loose articles written in Arabic and distributed at schools and the university of Milan, where foreign students represent 10% of the population. “Little by little, we realized that interest was growing, there were people willing to collaborate, to write, to submit guidelines,” he reports.
Sergi explains that in the region of Lombardy alone there are 120,000 legal Arab immigrants, 45,000 Egyptians, and the remainder come from Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine etc. “Most work in civil construction, but also in trade and small businesses,” he says. The records of the Association for the Development of Enterprises by Immigrants in Milan (Asim), for example, include around 6,200 companies owned by Egyptians and 1,844 by Moroccans.
Format
Sergi explains that in the beginning, Al Jarida innovated in its format and would open up horizontally like a wall calendar. “It seemed to be the most proper format for the two languages, particularly Arabic, and it was also innovative.” The initial print run was 2,000 copies. The design, however, was not quite successful, and now the newspaper looks more like a weekly magazine. The print run grew significantly: first it went up to 5,000 copies, and now it has increased to 10,000. Al Jarida is written in Arabic and Italian, and usually includes neologisms, due to ‘contamination’ by the Italian language and the dialects of Morocco and Egypt. Case in point: ‘prefetturat’ means city hall. The news room, comprising 10 people plus eventual collaborators, is mixed, half Arab, half Italian. “They are young, educated at universities that study Arabic, or at Italian language schools for immigrants,” says Sergi.
Football and immigration
The newspaper’s guidelines include topics of interest to immigrants, such as visas to live in Italy, amnesty for those who work in the country, but also lighter stories on cultural events in North Africa, the local football championship, teams and players, and interviews with prominent members of the Arab community in Italy or in their countries of origin. The newspaper also has an Internet website, www.aljarida.it, but the page is not updated daily. Only the articles considered more important are featured on the Web. The advantage is that Internet users may download the newspaper from the site.
As a result of the economic crisis in Italy, another subject matter is being highlighted on the pages of Al Jarida: investment. According to Sergi, many immigrants, who hoped to make it in Italy, now think of returning to their home countries to build a better life. “The idea is to keep Arab immigrants posted on investment possibilities in their countries of origin, with news stories on safe ways of transferring money, business opportunities in the country etc.,” he says.
To learn Italian and Arabic
Another project by Medinaterranea, also aimed at establishing closer cultural ties, is the www.italianoarabo.it site, an open dictionary that comprises 1,032 words thus far. The site is simple, has search options in Arabic and Italian, and an archive of texts for those who wish to study grammar or read an article, for instance. Similar to Wikipedia, this part of the content is open to users and may be edited by anyone willing to collaborate by posting a text, song or lesson. The site is new, so many of the links are still void, such as Italian music.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
