ANDREW

“There were many of us on the barge. After two days of travel we arrived in Lampedusa and they opened the hold. There were 21 people, they had all suffocated to death from lack of air.” 

Andrew comes from a small village in the middle of the forest in Nigeria. His childhood dream was to study, but there was only one village school, with overcrowded classes and one teacher for everyone. So he stopped, remained virtually illiterate until he arrived in Italy.

Here the dream started again. He lives in Paese (Treviso), works as a machinery mechanic and after graduating from middle school attends an evening vocational school for mechanics. 

He is part of an association of volunteers, he volunteers at disadvantaged children’s school camps, cleans public gardens and participates in social and cultural activities and projects that work on integration, equality, intercultural dialogue.

All this despite that image of dead bodies lying under his feet that remains like a woodworm in his head. It will take time to get rid of it.