Nozomi-Mimi's study trip

Nozomi-Mimi, a 24 year-old from Derry, blogs about her study trip focusing on 'Human Rights and the Illegal Immigrants in Malta':

There were only 15 people in this tour, and we already knew each other through an introductory session on board. A lawyer who works for the NGO 'Peace Lab' came to pick us up and we left the port to visit its office. As soon as we arrived at their office, the founder of the NGO started talking about Maltese history. What he told us was that Malta was always involved in the war due to its peculiar location (in between European continent and African continent), and the reason why he founded the NGO was that he was indeed aware of the importance of peace education in order to put a seed of peace during the Cold War.

After his lecture, we went to have a lunch in Imdina. The restaurant located in an underground, and there was still an underground way which was used as a shelter during the war...We visited Marsa Open Centre after lunch, which is a home for illegal immigrants who have spent up to 15 months in detention centre. The building used to be a school, and now more than 700 people are living there...These immigrants just arrived in Malta by chance, and they have been stuck in Malta since they had no money to go back to their countries or to go to the countries which have more established support for refugees.

Most of the illegal immigrants here in Malta were from the African countries, of which have/had long- term internal/intrastate conflict...We also walked around the Open Centre with the explanation by two South African guys. There were internet café, restaurants, grocery shops, barbars, classrooms for language classes and mosques inside the centre, which were all run by illegal immigrants who live there.

Back in the Peace Lab office, we had a lecture by a doctor who used to be an illegal immigrant but currently hold Maltese citizenship and worked as a doctor in Valletta, Malta. He talked about his own experience, racism in Malta (there is a strong racism against African immigrants in Malta), lack of sufficient governmental support to immigrants etc… He was very enthusiastic to tell us about what he had faced with and what is happening in Malta at the moment. At the very end of his talks, he was about to cry...