BRIDGES - The story of Mike – A Personal Story from COSPE Florence

Mike gets up every morning at 6, except on Sunday. He takes the train from Empoli - where he lives alone in a rented house – to get to Florence. From the early morning Mike stays in the tunnel of the underpass - that has been elected the reign of the city’s street art - talking with the passengers and selling his goods.

Mike, who pays 300 Euros rent in Empoli, can afford to live modestly selling tissues and lighters from 7 am to 2 pm. He gets away from the underpass only to attend Italian lessons for five months now, which are improving his linguistic competences very much.

Mike talks to everyone he meets while working and he remembers perfectly their names, their jobs and their problems, if they’ve been willing to tell him. He is well known in the meanwhile and loved in the neighborhood. But in spite of that, on November 11th, he was assaulted by two people covered by a hood who kicked and punched him.

Mike, helped by a young writer, was treated at the drugstore of the district and then, accompanied by COSPE, he went to the police station to report what happened. The answer of the neighborhood’s community to the racist aggression arrived quickly with messages of support.

Many people went to visit him after what happened and, thanks to some local organizations a pacific protest was organized a few weeks later, with workshops for children, writer’s performances and dances in the main square of the district, to support Mike and to refuse violence, reacting in a wonderful way to the assault in the underpass and showing a big heart and solidarity.

Mike’s story in Florence is a story of almost accomplished welcome but also of refusal and hate, and it tells us how important and necessary it is to create a network between the citizens, the institutions and the civil society, so that we can built BRIDGES and not walls.