the experience of Caritas within the oratories • According to Welfare

Walking through some streets of Milan on any given evening it is possible to meet groups of young people who distribute dinner to homeless people. They are not specialized operators but young people between 16 and 20 years old who come from the city’s speakers. Volunteers who decide to spend an evening helping those who are alone, poor and last.

This is just one of the many activities that Caritas Ambrosiana carried out in synergy with the oratories of the diocese of Milanwhich we are dealing with through some in-depth analysis to understand the growing role they are taking on in the perimeter of the second welfare. . After having set the boundaries of our reflection and having examined in depth the functions carried out in the summer in an educational (and conciliatory) manner, we went on to understand how and to what extent the experience and organization of Caritas can count on the availability of parish volunteers and achieve more and more people on the margins of society.

We talked about it with Luciano Gualzettidirector of Caritas Ambrosiana, asking him what relationship exists between Caritas and speakers, how do they manage to collaborate together, what does this collaboration generate in terms of impact on the specific target? Together with him, in short, we discovered what Caritas does in the Milanese neighborhoods and how it manages to dialogue with the Oratorian realities. Below we tell you about the dialogue we had with him.

A poverty that changes

Before delving into the heart of Caritas activities with Gualzetti we went to understand Who are the services promoted by the organization aimed at and what needs do they try to respond to?

According to the United Nations Committee, poverty can be defined as “a human condition characterized by continuous and chronic deprivation of the resources, skills, choices, security and power necessary to enjoy an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights”.

Today it is no longer sufficient to just talk about poverty as a lack of economic resources. “Now we no longer talk about poverty but about poverty in the plural” says Gualzetti “this is because there is no longer a single indicator, the economic one, to define poverty but different ones are used such as geographical, demographic and socialisation”.

Investing in speakers to address the struggles of young people (and adults)

In this sense, Gualzetti explains how Caritas increasingly interfaces with families who experience various difficult situations: not only people who do not have a home or economic resources but also families who experience situations of lack of opportunities: “there are families who, despite their work, cannot make ends meet” tells.

These are situations that affect not only adults but also and above all younger children. The report, promoted and edited by the Regional Caritas Delegation, “Sticky floors: intergenerational poverty in Lombardy” it describes well how the children of poor families remain attached to situations of poverty from which they are unable to free themselves and how, consequently, they see various fundamental rights disregarded. Among them, for example, there is the right to study affected by educational poverty, the right to aspire to freely build one’s future put at risk by the general resignation experienced by young people, but also the physical, cognitive, emotional and relational consequences linked, for example, to the (underestimated) phenomenon of food poverty (on which our DisPARI project focuses).

The Covid-19 pandemic also complicated the situation “there are teenagers who have experienced the pandemic in a problematic way” explains Gualzetti “and for this reason they no longer have relationships with their peers, they have abandoned sport and all leisure activities”. In other words, today, alongside economic and opportunity poverty, problems related to mental health and psychological well-being are making their way, but above all the emergence of loneliness. This new relational poverty considerably afflicts young people but also the elderly: Gualzetti explains how there are many elderly people who, despite having a house and a pension, ask Caritas for support because they experience situations of profound loneliness.

In such a varied and changing scenario where needs transform and become increasingly complex How do we deal with new forms of poverty?

Certainly a viable path is that of material help, think for example of the distribution of food aid, but what Caritas does is different: “the goal” explains Gualzetti “is to provide people in difficulty a plurality of tools that allow her to escape the need to ask for help and to be able to walk on her own two feet”. An approach that appears particularly suitable for addressing the changing needs described above, but which in reality has always characterized Caritas’ action.

A decades-long commitment (and approach).

Caritas Italiana was founded in 1971 by Pope Paul VI with the main objective of promoting human dignity and in a short time it spread to all the dioceses and parishes of the country with attention to everyone but in particular to the poor.

Caritas Ambrosiana is an expression of Caritas Italiana in the diocese of Milan and is committed daily to carrying out the founding objective through promotion of various services: “soup kitchens for the poor, reception centers for foreign minors, day centers for the elderly” list Gualzetti “these are just some of the services that Caritas implements to promote the autonomy and dignity of people”. To these must be added on the one hand support services for single women, victims of violence and prostitution. On the other hand, Caritas also offers concrete economic aid thanks to various funds such as the “Family-work fund” and the “We provide jobs fund” which give people the opportunity to find new jobs starting from work placements.

After-school programs online: precision welfare against educational poverty in Milan

Interesting, also for the topic we want to address here, is to understand who makes the creation of these services possible. Gualzetti tells how volunteering is the heart of the organization: “at the diocesan level there are around two thousand professional operators including social workers, social workers, educators and so on” dice, “But there are volunteers around 12/15 thousand”. And their role “weighs” in many services. For example, the canteen of the Ambrosian refectory is managed by 5 employees and around 120 volunteers. With these numbers, according to Gualzetti, the real challenge is to bring together professional figures with volunteers to offer a quality service to those who need it.

The canteens, reception centers and all the other initiatives, although fundamental, are not enough on their own. It is essential in hindsight to be able to intercept and understand the needs of the most vulnerable people. In this context i Listening Centers (which we have talked about extensively here) play a crucial role. These realities promoted within the Parishesgenerally managed by volunteers, provide immediate support through a direct and empathetic approach, but act as catalysts for the needs of people in difficulty, helping to build more targeted and effective interventions.

“Thanks to the Listening Center, people are listened to in their true need” says Gualzetti “they allow you to enter into relationships with other people so as to also be oriented in the services that already exist and also to start others that are not yet present”. In other words, the volunteers of the Listening Center intercept people and families with different needs and manage to direct them towards Caritas services.

Caritas and speakers: an educational challenge

The presence of the Listening Centers in the oratories is strategic for intercepting more and more needs of families since, as we have seen, in the city of Milan there is a dense network of parishes and oratories suffice it to say that in 2022 there were 124 active centers that helped around 3907 people. This, concretely, means that volunteers can be found in any neighborhood of Milan ready to listen and guide the most vulnerable people in the various services.

As we have already seen then the synergy between Caritas and speakersit doesn’t just stop at sharing spaces. From an organizational point of view there is one strong collaboration between these two entities: “the oratories are also inhabited by families who are taken care of by the Listening Centre” says Gualzetti “in fact there is a strong collaboration between Caritas and the oratory to ensure that vulnerable people are welcomed in all aspects of life, both economic and relational”. In fact, it is not unusual for a family to be reported to the Listening Center by the oratory or for another family already followed by the Listening Center to be invited to participate in the oratory’s recreational activities.

Regarding this last point, Gualzetti is sure “the oratory has an enormous potential for socialization, so much so that it has the strength to change even family models” explains “for example, the inclusion of a boy from a problematic family in the oratory represents an extraordinarily effective tool to help him escape from difficult dynamics that are trapping him, such as social closure and addictions”.

The lost rights of a generation suspended between dreams and uncertainties

This synergy is not only expressed in supporting families and children in difficulty: Caritas and the oratory together are also protagonists in the educational process of the young children and adolescents who inhabit the oratory spaces. “The dialogue” explains Gualzetti “It is certainly focused on situations of social difficulty but indirectly also enriches the educational path of children”. Both want to convey the same message: taking care of others, especially those who are more fragile. In this way, the presence of Caritas in the oratories allows the children to have a concrete experience of what it means to put themselves at the service of the poorest: through after-school care for foreign children, volunteering with the homeless, service at the Listening Center and much more , the kids get involved by becoming aware of what is happening in their neighborhood and fueling interest in topics such as social injustice, international cooperation and political action; pillars of Caritas’ activity.

In summary, the presence of Caritas within the oratories constitutes that added value to the educational path of the children which allows him to see the world with a new lens by concretely putting into practice the values ​​that the oratory teaches.

In light of these reflections, also favored by the dialogue with Luciano Gualzetti, we are even more convinced that our idea of ​​the oratory as a super-place seems to be more and more credible. The oratory in the dialogue with Caritas becomes on the one hand a context capable of effectively accompanying the most fragile families and on the other a space in which young people can concretely experiment with experiences of service, volunteering and active participation with who is most in difficulty.

In the coming weeks we will observe whether and how this hypothesis of ours can be supported from another perspective: that of inclusive sport.

Cover photo: SHVETS production, Pexels.com