We all know how much volunteering is important and plays a big role in our everyday civil lives. Without the solidarity and the commitment of volunteers in all the sectors in which they operate, we would certainly live in a more difficult world, divided into less inclusive societies. However, we are not so aware of how volunteering could also represent an educational model, especially for those who live outside of the complex dynamics of the adults’ world.

The male private middle school Braida, in Verona, Italy, with the commitment of three teachers, Giorgio Ripoli, Daniele Marazzina, and Luca Gallizioli, has been able to integrate the noblest aspects of international volunteering within the context of an alternative one-of-a-kind educational project, which captivated the boys at 360 degrees.

Thanks to the acquaintance between Giorgio Ripoli, an English teacher at the school, and Elena Massari, founder, and coordinator of Volunteer in the World, the idea of realizing an alternative school trip for the boys of the third year of middle school started to be shaped, a sort of ethical journey. Elena led the group as a tutor, and thanks to her help, the professors were able to organize a five-day trip to Athens, during which the boys would’ve had the opportunity to actively work for a volunteering project at the local no-profit association Love and Serve Without Boundaries (LSWB).

This volunteer association operates in a peripheric area of the Greek capital city and, in addition to many other projects, welcomes refugees’ sons and daughters coming from the Middle East and Central Asia in search of better living conditions in Europe.

The boys of the Braida school, as leaders of the activities dedicated to the young guests, would’ve touched with their own hands the difficulties and the stories of the little refugees, actively managing playful and creative projects, finalized at the development of interpersonal relationships and of manual capacities. All this within a true context of openness, service, cultural exchange, and growth.

THE TRIP AND THE ACTIVITIES

After the first period of training in Verona, the class left in January 2020.

The daily routine during the school trip was divided into two parts. In the morning, led by the professors, the students visited the city, while in the afternoon they moved to the LSWB centre and brought on the projects and the activities for the young refugees, concretizing a true passage from being “tourists” to being “protagonists”.

At LSWB, the boys carried out different playful and manual activities. They realized presentations about themselves, Verona, and Italy. They organized different group activities, games, and manual works, they helped to rearrange the rooms, moving tables, and chairs to prepare the school to receive more children.

It was a well-rounded job, carried out entirely at the service of others in a foreign country, a unique training experience that young adolescents rarely have the opportunity to live.

AN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

This whole volunteering project would have culminated, once back in Verona, in a series of meetings with Caritas and other local volunteer organizations, to “decontextualize” the experience made in Athens at LSWB and make the children understand that in every social context, it is necessary to take action to support the people most in need. The health emergency has inevitably blocked the work, but they hope to continue in this direction with the boys, to better consolidate their experience and ensure that the seed of volunteering can slowly grow in them, sprout and bear fruit.

This ethical journey has allowed the boys to directly approach the world of volunteering, which has come to assume a very strong educational and training value, both because it was lived in a school context and because it is only thanks to certain experiences that the most complex dynamics of today’s world can be fully understood.

Only active awareness of inclusion, service, and solidarity towards those in need, especially when experienced at such a young age, can contribute to the growth of people who will be more responsible and ready to face all the personal and global challenges of the future with greater mental openness.