On Saturday, we held a trauma-informed caregiving course for volunteers who will dedicate their free time this year to get involved in the educational development of about 70 children in state social apartments.

“Hello,” says the first person to come. “I came to bring my daughter, I will return to the end of the course to pick her up.”

Slightly contradicted by the fact that a volunteer is brought by the parent, I wonder in what class she is.

“In the ninth grade,” she says.

“Do you have volunteer colleagues?”

“There is a classmate in my class, but in high school we are many”

It blew my mind. I remember when I was in the 9th grade. Volunteerism was associated with forced labor, we were taken from classes to potato and onion fields to pick up the crops. Our daily plans were about school, homework, some relaxing moments, and this was it.

In the group of volunteers, alongside high school students, there were also students in social assistance and corporate youth. We spent the first minutes of the course asking them to tell us why they volunteered and how they decided to do so.

“I’m volunteering from 7 years old,” says another high school student, newly enrolled in the 9th grade.

“How so? Where are you volunteering?”

“I was going to children with autism and I was helping them to overcome their limits, little by little. I helped them draw, write, sing …”

At this point, I said, “there is hope.” In this new generation, yes, the facebook generation, there are also beautiful people whose example we can already look at. And because they let us take a picture (ok, three or four 🙂 we attach some for reference.