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Deadly games
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“Poor school performance, 17-year-old high school student shoots himself.” This took place at Sasso Marconi in October. |
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While on the train to school, a 15-year-old student of the Technical Institute joked around with his friends, talked about soccer and music, and went to the washroom, where he shot himself. All this happened in eight minutes. “A serene, shy, sensitive boy from a close-knit family,” says his parish priest. “A diligent student with no marks below standard. He was in love with a girl who didn’t even know he existed.” |
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Washington, December
Leslie Ann, 21, a successful graduate, - and an inveterate alcoholic - falls headlong down a flight of stairs. She was always drunk, like thou-sands of others her age. At the moment of her death, the amount of alcohol in her blood was four times the legal blood alcohol limit. |
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A few weeks before this, in Rome, a 14-year-old girl threw herself from a viaduct. It was 8:30 a.m., a few minutes before school started. Her parents were separated. She had had a row with her mother over her motorbike |
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Alarming news also come from Valdagno near Vicenza in Italy. In the past six years there have been four suicides among the students of the Industrial Technical Institute, the last one only last July. Silvio was a serious, intelligent boy from a wealthy family. He did brilliantly in his final examinations at the end of his school career. He came into to get his examinations certificates for enrolment in a university. In the quadrangle he ran into his literature teacher, and they had a casual chat on his plans for the future. The next day, he shot himself with his father’s pistol.
That teacher was Professor Annalisa Castagna, a Salesian past pupil and a Salesian Cooperator. She keenly felt the tragedy of death of this young man. Worried about the situation of young people, not only in the school where she taught, but also in the locality, one day she decided to go to the Headteacher of the school and offer her services and her time after school hours to counsel the students.
Gradually she discovered how they experience intolerance, aggression, racism, drugs, hidden violence, and above all, a widespread feeling of unease. The suicide rate of Valdagno is more than double the national figure and most of the cases concern teenagers.
Aware of the need to move from listening to action, Annalisa is now in the frontline in this battle for life. She organises meetings for reflection with the teachers of different schools, and is a member of the Family Advisory Body, a local organisation which gives her opportunity to meet young people.
The Problem
For three afternoons every week, she gathered data and information through a questionnaire administered to all high school students.
Their responses help shape a useful frame of reference:
The attitude of young people towards school:
- For some it was positive because the school offered them prospects of work and gave them self-confidence.
- For others it was negative because they feel that school was putting pressure on them to get qualifications rather than educate them.
The attitude of young people towards their parents:
- For many of the students it was positive, but quite a few related badly to their parents.
The attitude of young people towards their teachers:
- Some teachers were regarded positively; but others seem to treat them as students and not as people.
The attitude of young people towards values.
- Young people believed themselves capable of forming their own values and planning their own life. The values they looked for most were, friendship, honesty and pleasure.
In interviews, some of the answers to the question “What did you feel when you heard about your companions who committed suicide?” were “I was terribly shocked;” “I was surprised;” “I admired their courage;” “It made me think seriously.” Many, especially girls, have been influenced negatively by these events, to the point of thinking (and of actually trying) to follow their lead.
Through personal chats and with the data gathered on several occasions, Annalisa was able to analyse the situation. The majority of the young people were unwilling to take on long-lasting group commitments; traditional associations were not enough to satisfy them; they preferred the bars and the streets as “open” meeting places. On the other hand, they were only too happy to meet “significant” persons, people who could help them to get out of their isolation.
The Way Forward
Annalisa has always kept up her connections with the Salesian Sisters locally and works in conjunction with the Salesian Family. She knows the Preventive System and makes it her lifestyle, having assimilated it when she was young. She has a high regard for the salesian volunteer service, VIDES which is very active in that part of Italy. She sees it is an powerful educative strategy because of it involves young people working for young people. Through the Family Advisory Board she offers parents consultation, and medical, moral and legal information
Her work is a very fine example of collaboration in the Salesian Family. Annalisa Castagna works with a group composed of six FMA, two Cooperators, five other lay people and a Salesian priest. This group has set up an operation known as “Project Square Deal” which offers a road of hope and freedom for countless young people caught between difficulties and values, slaves of the present and of immediate needs, offering them the gift of a future.
Project Square Deal
offers counselling services via telephone (anonymous of course) to teenagers and young people, parents and educators who need a listening ear for personal difficulties with regard to relationship problems at school.
provides drug addiction advice to primary school children, teenagers, young people, parents and educators
organises the training of young people and adults in telephone listening and counselling skills.
provides access to competent people in the locality who are prepared to give concrete help to troubled young people.
prints and distributes thousands of leaflets giving details of the services available.
“Young people need a strong faith,” writes the psychiatrist Andreoli. “They cling to any god of the streets. They are in search of a God of daily life who can be touched, heard and shared, the flesh-and-blood God of whom St. Catherine of Sienna speaks. Even discos and drugs are expressions of this need to believe, this desire for paradise.”
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