MELMI- Post Visit Comments

MELMI- post visit comments

by Belinda James

Our visitors from Milan - Atlha Onlus have come and gone, leaving behind a few espresso jugs. Overall it was a massive success there was an exchange of views, dreams, joys and goals and amongst this, lots of fun.

We introduced the group to Interchange at the Great Australian Sunny Sizzle and a more fitting introduction couldn’t have been planned with The Supernatural's playing and Aussie snags sizzling plus, of course, Aussie tomato sauce.
The guys at Balance really got behind the project with LINK introducing the group to some good Aussie animals at the zoo, Network hosting a Healesville sanctuary visit, followed by some cricket and a good home cooked Italian meal and Balance Enterprises doing the Phillip Island trip where the penguins were a massive hit, inspite of us having to watch through the pouring rain.  Fred accompanied the group to the football to help him cheer on St Kilda (who else!) and it was here I realised that eating a meat pie without spilling it all over yourself was a skill not necessarily possessed by Italians.
The success of the trip comes down to several organisations working together:
Aussie Hands lead the project into it's fruition over several years. Melbourne City Council hosted an official welcome, the Italian Institute of Culture hosted a concert in the group’s honour, Bailey House showed the group some sights of Melbourne along with their service. There were many others that worked tirelessly but a special thanks to Nadia Lazzari for introducing the project to us and coming along to many of the activities to act as an interpreter.
Every exchange needs a reciprocal visit and we are all very excited to be making plans, along with Bayley House, for a group to go to Milan in September. I have no doubt we will be well looked after as Atlha are very excited about our visit. I’m really looking forward to future trips which  may well see staff and volunteers also travel to Milan to learn about their practices. It is a really exciting time and I expect that this project will see lots of learning and opportunity.