In an exodus, that of the displaced people of Polesine after the flood of 1951, the adult vocation of Antonio Mazzi matured. But that’s not why Exodus was born 40 years ago, with this name, even if the biblical exodus has to do with it and the floods make it out here too. Don Antonio, what did he find coming to Milan?
«I arrived in March 1985, as director of a professional training center attached to the Lambro park. The city, fresh from the trauma of terrorism, lived enormous contradictions: on the one hand Milan “to drink”, on the other, that of the desperate: walking for the park I found the used syringes stuck in the trunks of the trees, a hell. I couldn’t be watching ».
Why Exodus?
«I was allergic to the structures for young people, having been too much in a child college. We started walking, at the adventure, and we no longer stopped ”
«I had been too much in the college by priests and I was a little allergic to the structures, I loved the scouting spirit, sport, the open air. At a certain point, thinking also of the great biblical adventure of the Jewish people who freed themselves crossing the desert walking, I told myself that I too would have liked to take an exodus to bring walking the desperate of the Lambro park outside the heroine desert: I didn’t know anything about drugs then, but it was born so with a “caravan” for 12 boys: an adventure that determined my whole life. Even today that we have about forty structures, each must have an adventure experience: this year for the age of 40 we will leave and make a “caravan” all together ».
What is a “caravan”?
«Not Santiago di Compostela, but a small journey, start with a group of boys, give themselves an educational goal: help disabled, walking the mountains, making sports experiences, looking for a meaning through the stages, to give meaning to life. In this way we brought together guys who would never have entered the community. We started like this, for the first three years we only made caravans, we were around months, then we became permanent because there was a need for continuity “.
In the meantime, at 95 he learned everything about drugs. The heroin has also returned to Milan. What is the difference compared to then? «Then the drugs were” simple “and we collected thirty, desperate, children of the road. Then came the synthetic drugs and today the drug addicts are teenagers, or even 13 -14 year olds, children of the middle -class average. We should have the courage to prevent before, since the age of the primary, with great intelligence in order not to trigger curiosity “.
Would he be able to explain what he means with “intelligence”?
«I would say with the intelligence of the parent who knows how to speak to the son, where to speak is to give weight to the words, in an immersed society, between social and more, in empty chatter. The word, the verbum, on the other hand, is a serious thing that creates authentic relationship. We must not forget that even at school we go to learn, first of all the rest, the domain of the word. We live a complex time, in which being parents has become even more complicated if possible. We imagine education as a system of rules, but experience tells me that life is mainly made of exceptions ».
Speaking of rules, is it true that the position on the Lambro puts the historical location in difficulty?
“So far we have set ourselves as the peasants have done for 600 years: the Lambro comes out, is out one day, then returns and we clean the premises on the ground floor, where there are no rooms and where there is therefore no danger to people. The Basin Authority establishes that we should prepare bulkheads to protect the properties and the Municipality, owner of the buildings, to which the pelvis authority is hierarchically superior, asks us to provide: but we do not have the technical times in view of the next alerts. At this time we are linked because it is the beginning of our history, we think that the protection of people comes before that of the properties, and we deal with people here. This is why we hope that a mediation can be found: to be able to reformulate the rules, intervening ad hoc, because if the national rule applies to everyone, in life there are also exceptions and this we believe can be “.
(Interview exit on the number 14/25 of the Crisitiana family on the occasion of the 40 years of the first Caravan of Exodus)
