Saving migrants in Lesbos

Cristina Barbetta

Together with his wife Philippa, Eric Kempson, an Englishman who has been residing in Lesbos for 22 years, has spent the last 3 years helping the thousands of refugees arriving on the island. He has created a network to save many lives, coordinating volunteers and resources coming from all over the world

Ed Mayo: Why we need to integrate ethics in business

Monica Straniero

Only ethics has the power to bring us together. Vita International asked Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, what ethics really means and how we can build a culture that insists on putting societal welfare ahead of profits.

Patrick Gomes (ACP Group of States):«Diversifying partnerships is key for our future»

Joshua Massarenti

Ambassador Patrick Gomes shares his views regarding the main and most pressing challenges that the ACP (The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States) is facing.

Bernd Nilles: “North and South are no longer divided, but unified in facing the same problems”

Joshua Massarenti

CIDSE’s Secretary General talks to Vita International about the most pressing global challenges facing us today. “Agenda 2030 and the SDGs can de facto lead to a kind of systemic change to our economic model and behaviors.“We need courageous politicians who push their governments to take bold decisions and people who take their lives into their own hands and make changes now" he says.

Rethinking refugee camps

Kimberley Evans

With the refugee crisis still ongoing, Vita International spoke to Veronica Lai, a student in Science of Architecture and Planning program at the Faculty of Architecture of Alghero, under the supervision of Prof. Paola Rizzi, currently working on her research for Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan about how emergency architecture and refugee camp design can help provide refugees with a space in which they can “find a sense of security, of belonging, and where their human dignity is fully respected.”

Violence, rape, and forced marriage: inside the lives of female refugees

Kimberley Evans

"I've been a refugee since the day I was born" begins Mina Jaf, female refugee rights activist and this year's Women Refugee Commission Voice of Courage 2016 award winner. Speaking to Vita International, she describes what she saw inside the closed government camps in Greece. Gender based violence, forced marriages, rape, and child kidnapping. "It's so much worse now than when I was a child." Now she is starting her own NGO called Women Refugee Route, which focuses on providing female interpreters for women on the migration route. "I saw it first with my mother, and then with the thousands of women I met in Iraq and Greece that it would be easier for them to explain themselves in their own language," she says.

Aiesec integrating refugees

Cristina Barbetta

AIESEC Italy has launched InteGREAT, a project with the aim of receiving and integrating refugees and asylum seekers in Italy. On the 3rd of May AIESEC Italy was awarded by Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, the prestigious European Charlemagne Youth Prize thanks to the InteGREAT project. Interview with Guiscardo Urso, President of AIESEC Italy.

Human, world-saving love

Cristina Barbetta

The great French photographer and director Yann Arthus-Bertrand has presented in Milan his latest film, “Human”, an extraordinary portrait of humanity, a documentary that wonders about the meaning of life and of being human through the voice of common people from all over the world.

What makes us Human?

Monica Straniero

There are some universal subjects, but each story is unique. That was the starting point for the new documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. HUMAN is an emotional portrayal of a contrasted humanity in conflict between homophobia, poverty, war, disease, misogyny, violence, and revenge.

Saskia Sassen: "History will not treat European policy makers kindly."

Marco Dotti

With the migration crisis ongoing in Europe, Vita International spoke to Professor Saskia Sassen: the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co-Chair of The Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. "Existing policy is not prepared to address new types of conditions producing massive displacements," she said, "and neither is it prepared to deal with the consequences of such displacement."