Society needs to tackle the growing number of youths who are comfortable in depending on social benefits, the director of a home which offers shelter to homeless young men is urging.

“This issue needs to be tackled by our educational system from the early years. If youths keep coming with this attitude, we won’t have productive citizens and society will eventually have to face the problem,” Fr Savio Vella said.

The Salesian priest is responsible for Dar Osanna Pia, which shelters men aged between 16 and 25 who are referred there by Appoġġ because they are finding it difficult to lead an independent life.

The home, however, is not an extension of out-of-home-care.

“Residential care homes host children who need to be temporarily away from the family until the situation at home is more conducive to their upbringing.

“At Osanna Pia, we deal with young men who have no family support and are at an age when they cannot be rehabilitated back home. It is too late and they usually lack basic life skills to plan their life. Here, we give them an opportunity to learn how to live independently.”

Fr Vella insisted that those working with young children needed to do “their utmost” to rehabilitate them back home, set them up in foster families, or put them up for adoption.

“We don’t want to perpetuate the mentality that a child is put in an institution at birth, moved around as he grows older, and then brought here when he is no longer a minor.”

If youths keep coming with this attitude, we won’t have productive citizens

Those hosted at Dar Osanna Pia include young people who have had to carry the baggage of years of abuse and suddenly realise what they have been put through.

Others would have had to deal with their parents’ lack of care and are now expected to provide some form of income in the absence of the children’s allowance, but have no coping skills.

Once at Dar Osanna Pia, they are taught budgeting, cooking and other basic skills in a homely, serene environment where they are given space to discover and be themselves.

The set-up at the home is that of a semi-independent life with separate bedrooms and communal kitchen, laundry and living areas.

Each has their own daily programme – some go to work while others go to school.

There are currently 10 young men at Osanna Pia – the most the house can host – while another five live at Mamma Margherita Home, where each man lives independently and pays for his upkeep excluding rent.

For the last 11 years that Fr Vella has been taking care of the house, 150 young men have gone through Dar Osanna Pia, with the majority of them moving on to lead independent lives.

However, the home has also had its share of tough calls, including young men with mental health issues and others who fall victim to substance abuse.

But Fr Vella is mainly worried about youths who believe that “society owes them a living”.

He noted that while there had been Maltese and other Europeans who sought shelter at Dar Osanna Pia and manifested such an attitude, he had never come across migrants with this approach to life.

Migrants were motivated to work and their primary aim in coming to Malta was the opportunity to earn a living, he added.

At the home, those who want to work are financially backed: once they find a job, they are not asked to start contributing to their upkeep immediately, so that they can build up a small capital. They are even given pocket money and helped out with their travelling expenses.

But if they have no job as a result of a wrong attitude, they do not get any financial help and some residents have actually changed their attitude as a result.

www.salesiansmalta.org

A new family for a young migrant

Mark*, 18, arrived in Malta as an unaccompanied minor and has been at Dar Osanna Pia for three months.

“I have never lived in a homely environment or had the opportunity to plan my future. Knowing that I can now have a future feels much better mentally and emotionally,” he says.

“I had no family in Malta, but now I do and I have also started to manage my money, as before I used to spend my salary in a few days.”

*Name has been changed

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