SOCIAL WORKER ANNUAL REPORT, AN OVERVIEW ON OUR WORK.

Working to collect the documents for the Distant Support Program of AVSI, MPI’s (Meeting Point International’s) social workers have the occasion to look at the impact that our work have on vulnerable children supported. Two times a year the donor has to be updated with information about the child supported and the Social Worker plays a key role in this communication: he or she is the one in charge of building the bridge between two different cultures in order to show how the money provided has been invested in the path of growth of the child.

This work takes a long time, and is a great occasion for a critical review on the work done during the year. Reading through the personal communication of the child and the communication written by the Social Worker, I was surprised in front of the great things that can happen when a person is accompanied in the challenges and the efforts of everyday life.

The first thing that got my attention was the fact that there are very young people, thanks to the social workers and the carefulness of the teachers, who have a great awareness of themselves and of what really matters in life. In particular there are two twins who attends the “Luigi Giussani High School” who underlines the teaching method of the school they are attending. These girls explain that the aim of the teachers is not only to make them learn information and skills, but they want that the children can discover themselves, their qualities and their potentialities. The method is to introduce them activities that reawaken all the desires they have: art to reawaken the desires of beauty, dance and sports for discover all the potentialities of the body, Theater and Drama of African tradition to develop the awareness of their history. «The best day of the year has been the one of Music Dance and Drama: all the students participated. Different events took place like folk songs, traditional dances and poetry were performed. Everyone was completely astonished and excited. What a day it was», wrote a girl.

The beauty of this experience is possible, thanks to what is happening here, the carefulness of the teachers and thanks to the fact that someone in another continent decides to invest on the current situation of a vulnerable child. It generates a gratefulness in the child that gets aware about the fact that they are not alone in front of their challenges and it reawakens the affection for who is making it possible. The twin of the girl mentioned above writes to her donor «I have always wondered who you are to me. Sometimes I can think that you are just a sponsor to me, but I found out that you are a family and every time I wake up, I pray to God to keep us close. No matter how the distance is. I still know that you really care about me».

These witnesses are just the aim of the iceberg of more than one thousand children that are supported and accompanied in their life. The most clear perception I had meeting these young people is that they know that they are not alone and the fact that someone is interested in their situation and wants to be their friend and walk with them. People don’t need their problem to be solved, because behind the solution there are other problems that arise, people need to discover that they are not alone and that happiness is something that can really happen.

In the SWAR of a Social Worker, it is very well explained «We do not only want to take the children to school, but we want them to experience care and love; that in front of their suffering, there is someone thinking about them and always there with them in each challenge they meet».

    Francesca Peverelli

                                                                                                                                                                         10/12/2015