The center began to walk after Parma students occupied a university building to carry out their activities. Today, Artlab forms a community that brings together people of diverse citizenship, but in its beginnings many young people addressed the occupation project with their problems living in Parma. High university rates, unemployment and precariousness were all committed to building a solid alternative. In building new solutions to the situation, they soon realized that the system's contradictions punished another community: immigrants. In addition, institutions are reducing benefits for these people when more and more migrants are in the city.

The social center addressed the problem experienced by migrants in Italy as a systematic problem in Parma, where projects promoted from the center should respond to the situation globally. Since then, they have actively participated in initiatives for the rights of migrants, such as the constitution of the Lampedusa Charter or caravans of solidarity with migrants and refugees. In order to change the situation in Parma, they have contacted associations of communities of different origin and have opened the doors of the occupied area.

The global refugee crisis has had a major impact on Italy and, therefore, on Artlab’s current activity. Given the impossibility of the Government of Matteo Renzi, Artlab and other Italian occupational centres have become the exit of many of the refugees that the Government cannot support in recent months. The Stop war not people campaign has been launched with other organisations and agents of the Italian NGO to guide the arrival of refugees in Italy. The initiative arises to fill the gaps that institutions are experiencing in crisis management.

Artlab has become a family and a tool with an international vision that works in the construction of local alternatives and in the transformation of the Italian city. The autonomous association offers the city of Parma more and more inclusive initiatives of various kinds.

Italian and Arabic lessons

Many members of the association are students and become professors twice a week: they teach Italian lessons. Classes are free and there are different levels. There is a category for beginners who have just arrived in Parma. There is also a second level to better master the language. For the last two years, the young people who work as teachers have recognised that the project is having a great success. In return, a number of migrants learning Italian offer Arabic classes.

Anti-racist football team

Members of the social centre have set up the anti-racist football team La Paz, along with other refugees and migrants. The team plays at the Italian regional level and, beyond the results, the participants use football as an instrument to strengthen the coexistence between different cultures.

Housing, the right of all

The association has rehabilitated another building that the university had abandoned for families and precarious students who are at risk of eviction and cannot afford to rent in the city. The neighbours pay a symbolic rent to cover the costs incurred in the management of the building. Students, migrants and families live in the Nomas building.

The self-managed space Artlab has managed to integrate the integration and social struggle in the daily life of the inhabitants of Parma and has become an excellent resource to deal with the xenophobic offensive led by the ultra-right Salbini. Building from a young age is, in short, a tool to improve the living conditions of individuals. And in this Europe beset by the refugee crisis, beyond the institutions, they have shown that local solutions are a good opportunity.