“If we were to realize that even the smallest encounter might be a beginning, everything would change.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
There is a time during the Summer Camp weeks when everything feels lighter: rhythms become more flexible, attendance changes, and faces come and go like waves that arrive and gently retreat. It is a time made of shifting presences, of arrivals and departures, of bonds that are formed in just a few days and that, precisely for this reason, ask to be authentic.
It is in this seemingly “discontinuous” time that welcoming becomes our most powerful educational gesture.
To welcome does not simply mean greeting those who arrive. It means creating a space in which everyone can feel seen, recognised and expected. It is, even without words, to say: “There is a place for you here, just as you are, today.” This applies to every child, young person and adult who enters the Camp, even for just a few days.
The summer weeks invite us to adopt an even more intentional gaze: what is brief can become superficial if it is not carefully held. Instead, we can choose to turn every encounter into something full, meaningful and truly lived.
Ensuring a climate of well-being is not an optional task: it is the ground on which everything else can grow. Without welcome there is no trust, without trust there is no relationship, and without relationship there is no education.
For this reason, every daily gesture matters: a recognising glance, a remembered name, time given even in the rush, a careful explanation offered to someone new, a simple question that opens space.
Special attention is due to those entering our educational context for the first time: new staff members, trainees, temporary collaborators. They too are crossing a threshold. They bring questions, expectations, sometimes uncertainties, and a desire to belong.
To welcome them means not taking anything for granted: making values explicit, sharing practices, offering clear references and, above all, conveying trust. It means allowing them to feel part of the team, not guests; contributors, not only observers. Because a team that knows how to welcome is a team that educates better.
In the short time of summer, we can therefore choose a different quality of presence: more attentive, more conscious, more intentional. We can become guardians of an atmosphere that does not depend on duration, but on depth.
And perhaps this is the greatest gift we can offer: ensuring that, even when passing through only briefly, each person can carry with them an experience of well-being, recognition and humanity.
To welcome is to educate.
And every day, even the most fragmented one, can become a meaningful place.
Wishing us all a good summer journey.
