The Culture of Multicultural Integration: Tertiary Organisations' Role in Immigrants' Reception in Sicily

The second chapter showed as the reception system works and, after some years, it appears to have found the right way for being efficient; however the whole concept of reception does not end in the second and formally last reception, but it should continue through a real and concrete integration of the immigrant within the society. Albeit the SPRARs, through the ‘integrated reception system’ (accoglienza integrata), prepares the immigrant for a safe and complete integration, actually – as it has also been highlighted in the previous chapter – this does not always happen, both for the faults of the management of some SPRARs, both for the faults of lazy immigrants reluctant in learning what an efficient SPRAR teaches, both for the de facto Italian situation apparently unable even to properly enter (integrate) the own nationals – mainly young – in the job market.

Basically, the core of integration lies in the inclusion in the job market: job provides money for the whole and independent sustenance of the immigrant (and of his family); job actually gives the legitimateness to immigrant’s integration. Furthermore, the certainty of a job ensures a series of rights in cascade, from the absolutely needed residency permit that in the short-term may not constitute a problem for an immigrant that has just received the international (subsidiary or humanitarian) protection (but in the long term becomes essential), to other rights – and duties – entitled to workers.

It is possible to understand the importance of jobs through the negative side of the picture: what happens whether the immigrant has no possibilities to be included in the job market after the second reception in SPRARs? As long as the immigrant lives in the SPRAR the availability of a pocket money, of a place where it is possible to stay (to live), the renewal of the residency permit, and others essential provisions are all ensured (except those cases of inefficient SPRARs, of course); however, at the end of the second reception immigrants shall walk on their own legs, they should be able to earn money, to have a job contract, to find a place where it is possible to live; after the second reception they should provide for themselves, alone (almost). About this point, the long emergency approach Italy historically had did not help, however the shift occurred in the last years – towards a less emergency approach – seems to have taken a new direction.

The reality of immigration, especially clandestine immigration for international protection reasons, is now perceived as no more transitory as in the past, at least not in the short term. Now, the task to be solved is the full integration of these people, the full realization of the culture of multicultural integration pointed in the first chapter.
Since immigrants have not possibilities to start an own enterprise – it requires money that presumably immigrants do not have when they arrive – or to be easily included in the job market, a useful help may arrive from the bottom of the system, i.e. from people (citizens). In this context CSOs may play a relevant role, able to foster immigrants’ integration in the job market, providing them an assistance even after the first and second reception. The inclusion in the job market, through the channels that CSOs have, can be a helpful way for climbing – from the bottom – the path towards integration.

Especially in a context – the Sicilian one – in which the possibilities to enter the job market are more and more inferior to other parts of the Italian peninsula, marked out by the mismatch between the expectations of the native labour force and the capability of the economic system to create attractive job opportunities; the over-education characterizing both natives and a certain group of immigrants, often compelled in jobs distant from their – always higher – education; the institutional discrimination that – in Italy – obstructs immigrants from being included in public administration places, related to the immigrants’ segregation in low qualified jobs.

All these factors represent a deterrent, an obstacle that complicates immigrants’ integration in the job market, in a context in which job constitutes the lifeline, a mostly important ‘social institution’ (as pointed by the economist Robert Solow) that should not be prevented to them, in order to facilitate their (multicultural) integration.152 In this framework CSOs are presumed to possess the needed knowledge to guide immigrants towards an integration – allegedly from the bottom – able to ensure to the immigrant a safe inclusion in the job market. However, this does not happen, at least not so often: CSOs do a lot for the promotion of rights and values supporting equality, multiculturalism, ethnic and even exotic knowledge; in few words they aim at fostering a form of multiculturalism that risks to remain too theoretical and not enough practical. The possible consequence (and risk) is to create a society in which these values constitute a social connotation possessed by natives, a “fair modus vivendi” that concretely does not exists; a society in which immigrants are seen with compassion (and pity) without the sincere will to really do something for their benefit. Nowadays, the real challenge is to transform the more or less apparent multicultural values, promoted by many organizations and groups, in something more concrete, able to decisively integrate immigrants within the Italian society – namely through the job inclusion, first of all.

This chapter briefly introduces the concept of CSO as it has been conceived in literature, highlighting also the main tasks this kind of organizations undertake; then, it focuses on the case study about the city of Siracusa, in order to provide a snapshot of the CSOs involved with immigrants multicultural integration, and in order to analyse the particular role they play for this task: a specific attention will be devoted to the capability of these organizations to help immigrants for a “definitive integration” that may be proved by the concrete inclusion in the job market; finally, an analysis of the main criticalities CSOs faced in the city of Siracusa is used in order to depict an ideal organization able to insert in this framework, and able to actually pursue a multicultural integration that, of course, does not prevent from job inclusion. The aim is to show that CSOs can play a very important role in the reception system and for the multicultural integration of immigrant – many organizations already do that through different activities in the first and second reception. Nevertheless, even the post second reception may be improved through a more efficient involvement of CSOs, especially if these organizations would result able to ensure a clear way out in a system that does not particularly facilitate nor immigrants – and sometimes – not even natives.