[MUSIC] Hello, everyone and welcome to this presentation is entitled insights from border-crossers, COVID-19 and politics solidarity in which I'm going to discuss some of the findings that came out in our strength of research we conducted with the people on the move across the Italian and French alpine border. We conducted this research in a safe house in Italy, which provides shelter and assistance to undocumented migrants that are looking to cross the border into France. And they are trying to do so undetected because for many people, mostly originating from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Italy is a transit country, which means that most people are trying to pass by unaffected to claim asylum in other countries like France, Germany or the UK. During this presentation, what I'm going to try to do is to provide an account of narratives, understandings and experiences of COVID-19 vaccination among people on the move. And to identify some entry points that could be useful for thinking about engagement and participation of people on the move in COVID-19 vaccination and other public health policies. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, people on the move have been severely impacted by lockdowns and other restrictions to mobility and in several cases they have been subjected to containment measures like in recent Italy in pretty horrific conditions. In addition, mobility has often been tied to the possession of COVID-19 passport, which more often than not consistent showing a proof of immunization. So showing that people have received COVID vaccine. People on the move have also been portrayed as a particular health rightist, mobility was understood as poses significant risks in terms of transmission of COVID-19. And they've also been portrayed as hard to reach because they often try to make the state and especially any interaction with police or border authority which may lead to deportation or violent interactions. Overall in this regard, they have been portrayed as vaccine hesitant. However, what we found in our research was that people on the move were not necessarily vaccine hesitant at all. Rather, calculations around vaccinations always revolved around mobility and this was true both for people that decided to accept the vaccine and for people that decided to refuse one. For example, one of our informants told us, for me, I got the vaccine in Greece because I thought if the police ask for a vaccine certificate, at least I will have no problem. Another one told us, I did it because the police told me to. I have no power, the government has power. And this really goes to show that these interactions were very often fraud with heavy elements of coercion. And when people that indeed rejected the vaccination, we found that mostly they had done so for fear that the side effects from the vaccine would make their journey across the Alps much harder. People are scared of falling during their crossing France because they do so with a quite treacherous journey across the Alps which especially in winter, often proves deadly for people attempting it. Side effects of the COVID vaccination play here therefore a really relevant role. One of our informants, for example, told us, I received one of dose in a refugee camp in Bosnia, but I don't want to do the second one now. If I get sick, I will have to rest for some days. Another one told us, for me, I'm not interested in the vaccine here because I have heard that afterwards you will be weak. Now I can't, maybe when I arrived France and rest. On top of this, it should be remembered that migratory journeys are also very long and exhausting. Which means that when they arrive at the border between Italy and France and they have a very dangerous journey ahead of them, people are already under extreme physical and psychological stress, which makes the fear of falling out even more relevant. So how can we reach and engage people on removing the provision of COVID-19 vaccinations and other public health policies? What we found in our research is that on the Italian-French period going border, there are actually quite extensive solidarity networks which include Italian NGOs, political activists and sometimes even doctors and nurses. They do assist migrants on a regular basis. As far as people on the move are concerned, it is essential that the politics of global health are in close conversation with the politics of solidarity on a local level. These networks can be really relevant entry points for vaccination campaigns and other public health campaigns. However, these are strained networks in terms of resources as it is so it is really important to rely trust and fund their activities and staff capacity. It is also really relevant to translate information regarding COVID-19 vaccination and other public health campaigns in relevant languages, and especially to fund the regular presence of intercultural mediators. Most of all, it is important to listen to migrants and to what is really important to them, especially in the midst of their journeys. For global health policies to work for everyone, they have to put people's priorities at the center and in this case, specifically the mobility concerns of undocumented migrants and people. In this sense, the COVID-19 pandemic represents an opportunity for global health policy to actually acknowledge and address issues of inequality and structural oppression and understand forced migration, not just as a humanitarian crisis, but as a global health crisis as well. [MUSIC]