Pakistan-Italy

"It's the firs time in my life I speak so long with a woman".

Iqbal was embarassed when, after a few minutes talk on the phone, admitted it was the first time he talked to a woman for so long. A woman he had never met!

I called Iqbal last week, for "Unsung Ambassadors" a project on immigration I'm working at with Amer Farooq, a friend journalist from Pakistan. We met in Alexandria, Egypt, at the conference titled “Reporting Across Cultures. Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age”, organized by the International Center for Journalists, and supported by the UN Alliance of Civilizations.

About 40 journalists around the world shared experiences and discussed on topics such as freedom of expression, religion reporting and the role of media in promoting dialogue between different cultures. The discussion went of after ethe conference, on FOEDA blog.

We were asked to find a partner with different perspective and background and develop a joint reporting project - using new media - promoting cross-cultural understanding.

I teamed up with Amer and we are writing on the most popular prejudices and stereotypes about Pakistani migration to Italy, bot on the Italian and the Pakistani side. We also searched for examples of mutual understanding and cross-cultural dialogue. Later on, Waqar Jillani from Lahore joined our team.

While interviewing people in Italy and Pakistan, we realized immigration can be perceived as a bridge, and Pakistani immigrants be considered as "inconspicuous ambassadors" of Pakistani culture and traditions in Italy and of Italian culture in Pakistan.

Our story has been published on line in Italy - by l'Unità.it, a leading newspaper in Italy, and Bellunopress.it - and will be soon be published in Pakistan, both in English and in Urdu language.

On this page I'll publish the stories we gathered while developing our project.