The methodology
Underlying this is the methodology of social mediation, which does not just give immediate answers but builds relationships of trust, facilitates access to services and prevents isolation. Mosaico’s mediators and mediators, who have experienced asylum firsthand, work with active listening, proximity and accompaniment, focusing on people’s resources and not just their difficulties. This approach makes it possible to deal with complex situations-such as those related to housing, health or work-while preventing small barriers from turning into exclusion.
OASI moves to different places in the city. There is street work, active in the neighborhoods of Aurora, Porta Palazzo, Barriera di Milano, Porta Nuova and Porta Susa, where mediators meet those who often remain outside formal services. There is the Mbongui Social Mediation Space, located Via San Pio V 17b, started as an information point and now a multidisciplinary reference point for those seeking legal advice, bureaucratic and social guidance, health support or simply a welcoming place to be heard.
Networking and collaborations
Alongside its daily activities, OASI relies on a network of collaborations that strengthen the project’s impact: from the Migrants’ Rights Clinic of the International University College of Turin, which is present inside the space, to theFrantz Fanon Association, from Neighborhood Houses to city institutions. This connecting work makes it possible to better respond to people’s needs and prevent forms of marginality.
Orientation to the territory
At the heart of OASI is the orientation to the territory. Social mediation, for us, means knowing how to read the city and open roads within it. It is not an office with paperwork and forms, but a living knowledge that moves in neighborhoods, among people and services. The mediator does not carry a pen and notebook, he brings knowledge: of the streets, the places, the possibilities that Turin hides and that often remain invisible to those who arrive.
We support pathways to autonomy
On the street as in Mbongui Space, the mediator works like this: he listens, collects fragments of life, and returns information that becomes tools for orientation. He is a walking distributor of connections, a bridge that transforms questions into possible paths. Every year, hundreds of people who would risk slipping to the margins find support in OASIS. Sometimes it’s a renewal of a residence permit, sometimes it’s a health appointment, an address for housing, or simply a place to not feel invisible. Small gestures, which together build a path to autonomy.
The project and its importance
The project also thrives thanks to the support of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, which is not just a funder but a fellow traveler: it participates in monitoring, shares care for the quality of the work, and strengthens the trust that makes this journey possible.
OASI is, after all, this: a silent work of proximity, made of listening and living maps. A presence that does not simply fill in gaps, but accompanies migrant people to become protagonists of their own journey, capable of using the city and its resources as a space of shared possibility.
The App: OASIS On The Street
OASI on the street is Mosaico’s app to provide guidance and support to people in transit and/or experiencing social hardship. The OASI app offers both a moment of respite and information, factors necessary to make decisions based on clarity rather than despair.
