Alice – Community Service
My name is Alice and I am twenty-six years old, most of which I spent in a small town near Varese. Last January, prompted by so many positive experiences from friends and acquaintances, I applied for Universal Civilian Service. Why I chose Cape Town as my destination I really don’t know. Perhaps because of the photos of the mountains meeting the ocean, perhaps because of the music, more likely because of the desire to work with “children on the move,” that is, children under the age of 18 who migrate alone or with family members, either because of economic issues or because of conflicts in their home countries. Before coming to Cape Town, I worked as an educator in a center for Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Milan, but I had never heard of migration to South Africa, especially from the perspective of minors. To my great good fortune, ASCS decided to bet on me and send me to Lawrence House, a Children and Youth Care Center located in the Woodstock neighborhood, which houses up to 30 vulnerable children between the ages of 6 and 18. Lawrence House has the word home in its name. Yet, the first few weeks inside the center I asked myself many times, “How do you build a sense of belonging in children and adolescents deprived of the unconditional affection that, very often, only a family member can give you?” It took months to be able to dig the surface and really connect with the children. Then, however, aided by the school vacations, something clicked. In between activities, as we all tried to distract ourselves from the thought of a Christmas away from home, a relationship of mutual trust was created. That’s when I began to notice how, despite the difficulties, support was never lacking. A bit like one does with one’s brothers and sisters, the kids at Lawrence House are the only ones who can criticize each other, who can bicker with each other. But if the threat comes from outside, like a tortoise the group unites and protects each other. “Here is membership!”, I thought with a mixture of amazement and excitement.
My colleagues, veterans of the center, have told me that it almost always takes months (if not years) for former house members to recognize that, after all, this was a safe haven for them. I can see the affection in their eyes every time they visit and tell me how much Lawrence House has changed since they no longer live there, what and how many lessons they received from staff members, and how even now their words guide them in life. Of course, now the vacations have passed, the routine has begun again and with it the daily grind of living surrounded by so many people. Yet I seem to see everything with different eyes, with the knowledge that the word home has many more facets and meanings than I might have thought before I set foot in Lawrence House. But most of all with the certainty that even though I have the enormous privilege of being able to return to my family whenever I want, a part of me will always belong to these walls.
