“Transmitting a Christian view of life and of work” to the foreign youth who are taking educational or training courses in our country: that is the main aim of the course of formation for professionals in the sector promoted by the Office for social and labour problems of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), in liaison with the member bodies of the Association “Forma”, an umbrella organization representing the vocational training centres of Christian inspiration. There are an estimated 175 million migrants in the world, 1 in 10 are refugees. Italy too is now a multi-ethnic country, though in percentage terms it is still the lowest of the European countries. Monsignor Paolo Tarchi, head of the CEI Office, describing the aims of the course recently held in Rome, points out that “many of these migrants in Italy are foreign youth who are taking educational or training courses: most of them are enrolled in technical and professional institutes and in vocational training centres. They come from Romania, Ukraine, Moldavia, Albania and Morocco”. Vocational training, explains Mons. Tarchi, is now multi-ethnic and multi-religious: it is a problem that “cannot but challenge the professional training agencies, in particular those of Christian inspiration”, but it is also one that “involves all the institutions and can only be tackled by dialoguing with all the bodies concerned”.
