France – "ESTIC", Salesian school where pastoral animation is also entrusted to young people

23 February 2022

(ANS - Saint-Dizier) - At the ESTIC, a vast Salesian upper secondary school, with various addresses, active in Saint-Dizier, in the Department of Haute-Marne, pastoral animation is called "Spiritual and Human Animation" (ASH, in French), and it is the students of the schools who lead the sessions dedicated to the other students. Here, in concrete terms, is how this project works.

Every year, around May, Rodolphe Fior, Deputy Director of Pastoral Care, and Sylvie Chablin, animator, present the project to high school students: they are asked to lead an hour of ASH, in pairs, for their younger schoolmates.

This proposal, valid for the following school year, serves to familiarize them with the idea, since many of the kids involved fear they won't be able to prepare for ASH and take classes at the same time, with the risk of doing poorly in school. But so far, their involvement has not made their grades worsen; if anything, the opposite.

Therefore, by June, the young people must give a definitive answer whether to participate, and in September, after the different groups have been organized and entrusted to them, they no longer have the possibility to abandon the project.

Rodolphe Fior then works on adjustments to the timetable in close collaboration with the heads of the school’s different sections and the educational consultant, so that the young people involved in ASH do not miss a single hour of school lessons for their service.

At the beginning of the year a team of adults who are very attentive to the young animators and their proposals helps them to establish a path. The animators start from the interests of the young people, from the questions they ask themselves and their observations on life and current events, and the adults are careful to make a connection with faith. In this way, ASH becomes a time when young people talk to each other and adults placing their full trust in them.

Furthermore, every month a moment of coordination is created, which serves to look back on past experiences, difficulties, moments of joy, and to project oneself into future activities.

One day is also dedicated to formation. Young animators are invited to use the Salesian Youth Movement's agendas on the papal documents Laudato Si' and Fratelli tutti as a point of reference, and find activity proposals on the Salesian site Oxyjeunes (https://www.oxyjeunes.net/).

This organization allows older students to take responsibility, to feel heard and called, to better understand the meaning of this hour of ASH, to develop a taste for relationships and exchange with others.

Here's what the facilitators shared during a discussion about the activity: "This ASH hour is a space where we are trusted... They are moments of joy. We are happy when we see the children happy to participate... They are moments that allow us to develop bonds... It is a real experience of supervision, where we have to give them points of reference, we discover the place of authority, we learn to be patient, to seek answers to their questions... We become curious with the curious, we are authentic and sincere in the bonds that are established among us."

Although not all the animators are believers, all are aware that the project is guided by faith in man and in God. "It is not uncommon for Sylvie and I, in concert, to bear witness to our hope, during meetings, and in all circumstances we react as Christians with the animators," the Assistant Director of Pastoral Care explains further. "I believe that there is something in the faith that is still very mysterious for them, but in which they progress little by little."

In conclusion, Mr. Fior testifies that all the animators "even when they do not share hope in God, share the same project of living an adventure together, at the service of young people, for the Beautiful, the True, the Good"; and that there are also animators who, thanks to this service, have come closer to the faith.

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