We take the question Who, if not you? from the slogan with which the esplais movement sought to challenge young leaders at a meeting of educators. The intention was to empower them, to make them aware of their personal responsibility when it comes to educating children in camps and recreation centers. This expression motivates our reflection on World Youth Day, avoiding a negative, even realistic, analysis that lists the difficulties young people face today: working conditions when they work, housing, employability despite the high levels of training they have received, leisure time associated with substance use... We could reflect on so many circumstances that limit them from the opportunities that arise today.
Who, if not young people, will shape the society of the future? Who, if not they, having become aware of environmental abuse, will take its preservation seriously? Who, if not they, will take advantage of secondhand clothes or buy online what others no longer use? Who, if not young people, will be the critical voice and act accordingly, in a self-centered society that ignores the weak and seems to value nothing but the haveWho was most supportive during the DANA in the Valencian Community?
In the middle of summer, the season of relaxation par excellence, in addition to enjoying a legitimate vacation, many young people volunteer for education, work as counselors, and travel to distant countries to collaborate on cooperation projects or religious missions. They travel the world, learn about other cultures, and question the meaning of what they and the Western world as a whole do. They become aware of the political, environmental, and economic reasons that motivate immigration and overcome poor approaches that could lead them to the far right, as a form of rejection of the established order. They see the results of their collaborative work, take unconsciously An awareness of the need for effort and perseverance. Eating poorly but sharing a few days with different cultures, they understand the precariousness and internalize a certain austerity. Events like the recent World Youth Summit are exceptional moments in their development, opening them up to the spiritual dimension and exposing them to new and diverse realities.
The opportunity that today's world offers to travel facilitates the discovery and reflection of other ways of thinking. Dialogue through an increasingly universal language, English, allows them to share visions and understand other ways of thinking, and this makes them more flexible and open to change. Those relationships formed informally on an unplanned trip will, at other times in life, become personal contacts that will help them see the meaning of other realities and ways of doing things different from their own.
Contact with peers leads them to make choices such as giving up meat to avoid being complicit in animal abuse. In the family kitchen, we may share it or experience it as a mess, but a decision like this is still a committed awakening to the industrialization of the human relationship with nature. And only they realize it and denounce it with their radically ordinary behavior. And if they have the opportunity for mature support, willing to actively listen and ask the right questions, they will make life choices that can go beyond youthful reflections. Having someone who listens to you and who you know is available is one of the best antidotes to low self-esteem in adolescence and youth. Being able to enjoy these opportunities for knowledge and reflection will strengthen conscious and committed personalities. Experiences of deep relationships will foster the later use of social media as a channel of communication and not as a frivolous space where people only seek each other out. likes.
What a great favor did we have for the person who asked us the question. Who, if not you? at the time when we were most open in our youth.
