” “Not only flexibility

“Youth of Europe in a period of change. Laboratories of faith”: that is the theme chosen by the European bishops for their tenth Symposium planned to be held in Rome from 24 to 28 April. We have already examined some aspects of the involvement of young people in the Church and in society and the challenges it poses (cf. SirEurope no.11/2002 and no.13/2002). Now we will continue this process of reflection in preparation for the Symposium of the European bishops by focusing on young people in response to a changing world of work. Flexibility is, in fact, the word that now characterizes youth employment in our continent. But in recent years there is a new phenomenon: the ever more numerous immigration of youngsters from Eastern Europe who arrive in the more developed countries of the continent with the dream of finding a job – better still if seasonal – and sending their earnings back home. We discussed the question with Silvie Pierre , the French coordinator of the Europe section of CIJOC, the international coordination of GIOC (Christian Worker Youth). What are young people’s expectations? “Beyond their various aspirations, many reply that they want to have money, a home, a family and a job that may permit them all this. We need to help them to go deeper, and make them understand that the aspiration to have a job poses the question of the meaning itself of life”. How do you mean? “Let me give one example. When we speak with young adults who are working on short-term contracts, they often tell us that they accept precariousness of employment, because having a job, even if temporary, is always better than not having one. Only once they succeed in going deeper into the question do they understand that temporary jobs, especially if unprotected, don’t give them the chance to achieve the necessary self-sufficiency and be independent of the family from which they come. Giving a content to work means understanding what I want in life, what conditions I’m prepared to accept and, hence, what dignity and security I may rightfully claim. The risk is that, in the absence of work, young people are ready to accept any conditions at all for fear of falling victim to unemployment. They go so far as to fail to recognize the psychological pressure to which they are subject due to conflict between fellow-workers or opposition to the bosses. They think all this is normal…”. How do you intervene in such cases? “We undertake a process of counselling together, starting out from their own situation. The aim is in the first place to enable them to understand how best to experience work, on the basis of a series of questions: do I need to work? What impact does it have on my life? Does it enable me to grow as a person? Does it help me to become more a man, more a woman? We try to make them understand that work is not only a means of livelihood, but an experience of life. It’s not a question exclusively bound up with remuneration: it is bound up with the original purpose of being human”. What do you ask of the European Union? “It’s a question very much dependent on the situations in the individual countries. In general, we note that in Europe the political world speaks a good deal of the improvement of the working conditions of young people, but does not adequately tackle the problem of flexibility and short-term work. But this is a problem that significantly characterizes the work of the new generations. It’s a real phenomenon that is growing a great deal in the South and East of Europe, but on this front not enough has been done. Our task is just that of bringing to light the hopes and aspirations of young people, which are in essence those of having a respectable and permanent job, but above all a job that permits them to live a dignified life, have a family, a home, a minimum on which to live… We ask the institutions what future they are building to ensure that young people have the certainty of being able to turn their own aspirations, their own project of life, into a reality”. Maria Chiara Biagioni