As a volunteer worker at the Hospital of Saint John of God I have undertaken the mission of trying to help the patients forget their situation for a moment.  The special thing about this effort is that the patients are not the “conventional” type; they are little children.

It helps me that I am still young myself: I was their age recently enough that I can understand and work with them on their level, avoiding a parent-child kind of relationship.  This gives added value to my concept of hospitality, because, aside from the welcome that I can offer the others, with these young people I can really understand their needs; the needs of children and adolescents in a changing world.  This lets me act in a personalized way, depending upon each individual case.

Not only that: encountering and responding to so many different types of difficulties has helped me to mature.  But I have no intention of making the mistake of thinking I’ve seen everything already.  A hospital always reserves surprises for you and has lessons for everybody to learn.  One example of this is the challenge I faced at the beginning, learning that very often the gravity of a disease is accompanied and aggravated by a condition of social marginalization because of who the patient is and where he/she comes from.

In these times, young people are more aware than ever that something has to change, and this is what obliges me to devote part of my time to social needs.  Because if the younger generations don’t participate in collective development, who is going to be responsible for progress?