Viterbo – Around seventy young people, between 19 and 25 years old, participated in the day of mutual understanding and growth.
Viterbo – Received and published – Motivated, curious, proactive, participatory. This is the identikit of the young people involved in civil service for the diocesan Caritas of Viterbo that emerged from the first regional meeting dedicated to operators in Lazio. They are the young people interested in the mandatory training course, to be carried out both in person and online, who met for the first time since the start of the new year. A collective meeting hosted in Latina last June 27, under the direction of trainers Barbara Nardone and Claudio Lang, referents of the regional nucleus of Caritas Lazio for universal civil service.
Latina – The boys of the civil service of the Caritas of Viterbo at the regional meeting
In the complex of the Curia of the Pontine capital, just under 70 young people gathered, arriving for this day of mutual understanding and growth – the first of eight scheduled – from every corner of the region. They are the young people, mostly between 19 and 25 years old, who are undertaking the civil service path for the year 2024-2025 in the provincial Caritas structures. In Latina, the in-depth training course for operators has begun, which will proceed according to the program (with 42 hours of general training work, followed by 72 hours of specific training for individual Caritas in their own offices), for the rest of the year, also in other offices in Lazio. A first step, a step of knowledge, discovery and information.
Emblematic and significant was the gathering, held in the courtyard, with all the participants arranged in a large human and colorful circle. Everyone was called in turn to introduce themselves and provide their motivation (the “why”) with respect to the decision to undertake the journey in Caritas. What is the trigger, the push, the call to undertake a 12-month journey, characterized by making oneself available? Many and varied were the answers that came from each individual volunteer. Like the – inevitable – one of looking for a job. But among all of them, the typical figure of the young volunteer emerged: “I chose to do civil service in Caritas because I want to get involved and give help to those who need it most”.
But not only that. Even more enlightening, although not exhaustive, is the range of responses received – in technological and anonymous mode, but also with direct questions – on what Caritas is, where it operates, what objectives it pursues, who it addresses, how it intervenes, what funds it uses, etc.
This is where the key words of the training day and of the civil service project in Caritas emerged. The most popular? Help, listening and sharing, then followed in the in-depth phase by understanding and empathy towards the person, whoever they are; up to also focusing on the mission of humanitarian aid, when necessary, and disinterested.
The in-depth phase necessarily brought back to the present the founding message of Caritas, promoted by Pope Paul VI in 1971, when he proposed the creation of a pastoral body that would be present and active among the communities and users, understood as people. When testimony and pedagogy were among the watchwords of the project, soon enclosed in the basic terms that still today give the figure of being Caritas: listen, observe, discern. Consideration that led to the emergence of another word that (only apparently) previously had been forgotten to point out: heart.
The division of participants into groups, called to create a figure – stylized – of the typical operator active in Caritas, with his motivations and objectives, closed the day. A further element useful for sharing and making a synthesis to store concepts and perspectives of the individual path of each, inserted in a large and articulated activity of cooperation that gives concrete and collective answers to the needs of many individuals.
Diocesan Caritas of Viterbo
July 3, 2024
