- ATD Fourth World

Valerie is a very intelligent and communicative young woman, but has spent the last two years looking for work through training schemes without success. Why is it that she cannot find her place in the world of work, in the adult world? Is it because she lacks motivation or is too picky in her choices? Eighty application letters, each one met with a negative response, ten months in training and insertion programmes and the sacrificing of many of her dreams show exactly the opposite.

Through all this time looking for work, while she felt as if she had been “left to fend for herself”, Valerie played an important part in preparing for the arrival here in Geneva of the European Solidarity Caravan. This caravan project gave her the opportunity to build confidence in herself, be herself and feel useful. During one People’s University meeting [1], Valerie impressed a group of adults by talking about how difficult she found life without work, without a regular rhythm, and how it became more and more difficult to find motivation after each rejection letter.

As time passed, Valerie grew more and more ready to accept any work that might be offered. She was ready to accept anything that meant she would no longer be in limbo or so dependent upon her father. Three days before the caravan was due to arrive in Geneva, she was offered a work placement in a supermarket. The drawback was that the work placement was due to begin the following week, at the same time as the activities with the caravan were due to be held.

What struck me at the time was the fact that Valerie was not more disappointed or more angry than she was. Her participation in the caravan project had effectively been thrown out of the window, and she had spent seven months helping to prepare this event. But, instead, she was calm. “That’s just how it is. And anyway, I can’t do anything about it.” It was at this pont that I realised once more how much these young people such as Valerie have to teach me. I cannot but be impressed by how they can be so adult and accept how things are, and how they accept the difficulties in their lives and still stay strong.

The day the caravan arrived, Valerie was there as part of the welcoming committee. The next morning, however, she got up and went to her work placement at the supermarket while we spent a wonderful day with the young people from the caravan project. But on the Wednesday Valerie did not turn up at her work placement. Something, or a number of things combined, meant that she did not go. She had gotten up and told her father she was going and, upon passing them in town that morning, had even told the young people from the caravan project that she was going. Instead, she spent the day in town, all the time waiting for the moment when it would be late enough to come back and join the other young people without anyone wondering why she was not at work.

Her Thursday was scheduled as a day-off and so she spent the day with us. She was seated at the “table of honour” during the forum “A Future for All Young People”. There, in front of eighty people from her own neighbourhood, she explained with conviction what young people go through when they feel abandoned and unable to find work. She even saw her counsellor and said that everything was fine.

But everything was not fine. By chance, I happened to be on the landing to Valerie’s apartment when her father received a telephone call from the supermarket demanding to know why his daughter was no longer coming to her work placement. He was furious and would not believe me when I said I did not know this was the case. I could not believe that Valerie had not said anything to me. But Valerie’s father went to drink a coffee with her to talk things through. I could see that she was desperate, worried and looking to me for help.

After the discussion with her father, I found Valerie in tears, sitting on the grass near the music and the workshops that the presence of the caravan had brought to her neighbourhood. We talked for what seemed like hours. She spoke of her fear of disappointing people and how much guilt she felt. “I’m a disappointment to my dad, my counsellor and you,” she said, and “I’ve failed again.” She is so used to taking on responsibilities so much bigger than she should have to that she thinks she is strong enough to do anything and that she is invincible. She told me that after the first two days of work, her back began to hurt. The last thing she wanted was to be unable to work properly because of her back and so she preferred not to go to the supermarket at all.

Valerie then took part in the remaining days of the caravan project. Perhaps this was, in a sense, running away from reality, but at least she was able to see the fruits of all the effort and energy she had put into the project.

But reality caught up on the day the caravan left Geneva when Valerie’s counsellor telephoned me to say that Valerie was going to be fired from her work placement scheme because she had not completed the placement at the supermarket. I called Valerie and she explained that they had told her she wasn’t ready to take on such a work placement or training, and that she should try to deal with unresolved issues from her childhood to understand why she always sabotaged her own prospects before coming back and trying again. Valerie also said that her counsellors had told her that it was pointless seeing a psychologist given that she already had a relationship of trust with me. I could not believe it: it was the last day of the caravan in Geneva, I was exhausted and now all this responsibility for Valerie was falling on my shoulders as the other adults in her life walked away from her saying, “But you’ve got Alice.”

The next day, we went for a bite to eat together to talk things over. Once more she impressed me with her reserves of strength and her determination. She had already made an appointment to see a psychologist the week after and had found the contact details of somebody at the hospital who could help her lose weight. Where does she find such strength?

Today, Valerie is still looking for work. There are times when she loses all motivation and becomes frustrated at not earning any money.

I am now accompanying Valerie when she goes to meet other organisations that work with young people looking for employment, and together we have filed an application for State support for her. But in front of her social worker, I don’t see the same Valerie that I know: the Valerie that I know always speaks her mind and loves to talk; in front of her social worker, all I see is a Valerie who hardly speaks but does so with a small voice when she has to and stares at the ground. This raises a number of questions for me. Because who am I, given that I have no real training or resources to support someone in a search for employment, to give hope to these young people and tell them to believe that they will find what they are looking for? I am simply the one that is there at their side.