Donne senza confini

HONORARY CONSUL WOMEN IN A MOSLEM COUNTRY!

(Giorgia Marazzi with the popular italian showmen Patrizio Roversi )

Giorgia Marazzi, 30 years old, she is the first italian women Honorary Consul in a moslem country, the Maldives. The interview for Serverdonne.

"Promoted on the field Honorary Consul of the Maldives for the care sustained during the emergency tsunami during last december", it has been the speech pronounced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gianfranco Fini, few months ago in Colombo (Sri Lanka).
An atypical career for Giorgia Marazzi, from marketing manager to the diplomatic charge on the Maldive atolls.
But who is Giorgia Marazzi? We have read some short news on the newspapers. The new Honorary Consul has told us her history….
Dr. Marazzi, Why Rome- Maldive only going?
"My history in the Maldives started in 1995. I was in London to learn english considering that ended the high school I didn't even know how to articulate an english sentence. My mother sent me to London to study and to work when she called me cause she wanted make a trip with me to the Maldives. My mother was spellbound from that tropical country while i did not interest, London missed me."
Maldives are usually considered from the public opinion "the heaven", why did you have another opinion?
"The warm exaggerator bothered me, the so narrow dimensions and then they were moslem! In my culture the moslem heathenly killed children, women, terrorist attacks. It was what arrived to me from the television. I was annoyed from their curiosity, they were to fix me for every movement there. And consider that I reputed me tolerant… "
How did you change mind on the Maldives?
"The beauty of the sea, the calm and…classic, i falled in love for a maldivian men."
Therefore if today you are Honorary Consul is it due by love?
"Not completely. My love story last 3 years making the commuter, 4 months to the Maldives and as many in Italy also because I was enrolled to Political Sciences at the University. I had undertaken a new working activity with him, we collaborated together for the operation of safari boats. In the '98 I definite stop me to live the love story but soon I was left by him for his sudden marriage with another women. It has been really hard cause I was a women alone in foreign Country. Here I discovered my hidden strong character. I remained in Maldives disobeying to my family, I wanted to show to myself and the others that I could continue alone."
So you remained alone, to the Maldives without any support. How did you survive?
"I have begun to teach Italian to people of all the ages and social extraction, a big effort for me that I had not experience and any kind of preparation. My mother sent me books and cassettes with games because I taught to children, manager, staff of resort, translator for the Government. After this experience I accepted another challenge, I accepted to work for a company of hydroplanes as customer service and marketing. It has been difficult because other people wanted my job and then consider that i was a foreigner and woman, I have been very hindered."
How is started collaboration with the Italian Government?
"Following a tragic event, I have been contacted from the Italian embassy in Colombo to follow the event that is concluded then with the death of an italian lady. I gave assistance to her husband and succession the bureaucratic iter for the repatriation of the corpse. Since then I became the point of reference. For one year I have done this without salary and sacrificing my leisure time. I resigned me in December 2002 and to April Honorary Consul, the maldivian Mr.Deen, he offered me to help him. He offered me a small office with an inferior salary to my precedent job but it was an unique experience. I wrote report to the embassy and the Italian Foreign Office."
In March 2004 a delegation of the Foreign Office realized from the meetings had with the local authorities, that italians to the Maldives needed a more incisive representation. Italians ask to have the possibility to make some practices and documents without going to Colombo (Sri Lanka) and the same thing are asked by the maldivianis.
A series of events have brought Giorgia Marazzi to be the ideal candidate for Honorary Consul.
"In April 2004 the local Honorary Consul is discharged for incompatibility of positions, therefore I have not been paid anymore but I have continued to help italians without salary and without refund expenses. End of november, Italian embassy started to be worried for the start of the holiday season and for the influx of Italian tourists, so in December the ambassador has come in visit to meet the local authorities to find a solution. Maldivian authorities proposed me as Honorary Consul, also the italian ambassador of Sri Lanka had the same idea, so in the Maldives there would have been a foreign Honorary Consul and women! It has begun the bureaucratic iter for the official investiture delayed by the Christmas parties and by the tsunami."
What role did you have in unofficial quality of Honorary Consul during the tsunami?
"The Maldives have not suffered damages and serious losses as in other places. What I have done and I have felt to do, independently from the position, it has been give my help in emergency situation. Not easy to evacuate 7000 frightened people. I have had so many thanks besides the insults of the capricious Italians that wanted the 1° class for the flight of reentry, the recommended and so many other situations. Then the meeting in Colombo with the mission of the Minister Fini. I had the opportunity of knowing the Minister the preceding year to the Maldives, to thank me and to praise me for the developed job, to have made my persona mobile phone available for the Minister, in front of the journalists, he has named me on the field Honorary Consul and today, April 18 th 2005, the official investiture has arrived."
What will you do now?
"I will continue until that I will have the energies to make two jobs without never having some time for my personal life, I would like to take a vacation....
A vacation to the Maldives?
"When I say that I work to the Maldives they envy me and they think that I stay all the day on the beach. The place is beautiful but there are also so many difficulties. Also working with the tourism there are not hourly above all for the emergencies."
Giorgia Marazzi appears a not shy person and spontaneous even if in past she was not, "I have been a scout, head squadron, this has helped me to fight the timidity."
In which values do you believe?
"I believe in the friendship. The love for the other ones is fundamental. I have learned the respect and the tolerance, since I am here I observe the Ramadan to understand what they feel, the people that don't have food and the fortune that we have."

Federico Bastiani