Silvana Venosi’s eyes instantly fill with tears when she remembers the day her son Ruggero told her he would be moving to Australia.
“There was a moment of silence, of surprise. In that moment, I saw a completely different future to that which I had already visualised because I had always thought I would see my children, my grandchildren, a big family altogether in one place, in one city,” she told SBS News in Italian.
Her son left their home city of Rome and landed in Canberra six years ago.
He was just 19-years-old.
It’s an increasingly common reality as Italy's crippling youth unemployment rate of almost 40 per cent drives tens of thousands of young Italians away from home each year.
“I am used to a lot of people, a lot of noise, a lot of Italians and I came to Canberra and it was a Sunday afternoon. I will never forget that Sunday. It was a couple of weeks before university would start so all the students were away and Sunday afternoon, nobody was around,” Ruggero told SBS News.
“I was doubting myself, I was doubting where I was.”
For Silvana, who comes from a country where a tight-knit family unit means everything, the change spurred her into action.
She took up English lessons and soon realised a huge test awaited her.
“I was the connection between him and his family,” she said.
One of her visits to Australia to see her son cemented her role even further.
She overheard a young Italian boy speaking to his mother over Skype at a public library when she realised she needed to reach out to more people.
The boy was telling his mother that he could no longer stand living on the farm where he was working for three months as part of his visa requirements and that his only option was to return to Italy as a failure.
“I heard words that really touched my heart and made me jump because I saw in him my own son.”
“Imagine a 25-year-old man with the courage to come to the other side of the world who thinks he’s a failure. I felt so bad,” Mrs Venosi said.
Silvana Venosi’s son left the hustle and bustle of Rome to move to Canberra. Source: AAP
Facing the same issues together
Now Silvana and Ruggero want to use their experience to create an online network for Italian migrants in Australia called ‘Itaufamily’.
It aims to connect migrants with each other but also with second and third generation Italians already here so they can meet for coffee and talk about their experiences.
“If you know that there is somebody else that is going through exactly the same feelings, issues that you are and knowing that you’re not alone, you already feel more confident because you do know that you can count on somebody else and funnily enough you both can face the same issues together,” Ruggero Venosi said.
Silvana hopes to be the main contact in Italy before people leave, while her son plans to help them once they arrive in Australia.
Their family friend Marco Marvelli is also involved in the project.
He says another aim is to reconnect Italian migrants who arrived in Australia in the fifties and sixties with their mother country, its language and its culture.
“All these people, they did the same thing, kind of, just 50 years ago but the concept is the same so they know what it means even if it now is much easier,” Mr Marvelli told SBS News.
“We really hope it's going to be a bridge between the Italian community in Australia and Italians coming here.”
“The old generation, they want to give back because they came here without speaking a single word of English and they managed to build something and it was much harder before because there was no internet, there was nothing. They had to come by boat.”
The Italian embassy in Canberra is on board but more volunteers are needed.
Silvana Venosi says to reach out to more migrants, the initiative will also eventually require more funding down the track and a sponsor to help cover administrative costs.
