I’m Tamara Pizzolato, a volunteer at Hope for Children CRC Policy Center (HFC) in the Humanitarian Division at Hope for Children’s Nicosia shelter and participating in the European Solidarity Corps program. I hold degrees in Pedagogy and Health Education, providing me with a strong foundation in child development, educational and teaching methods, and health promotion. I would like to combine my academic background with hands-on experience supporting children in humanitarian settings, building trusting relationships, facilitating educational activities, and adapting to multicultural environments.
The first stages of the educational relationship
In the process of building an educational relationship, the first moments of encounter represent a delicate and significant phase. When meeting someone for the first time, it is common to seek an element of commonality, a shared ground capable of easing the initial embarrassment and fostering mutual openness. In educational work with children, this passage is often mediated by play, which serves as a universal language and a transitional space; while with adolescents, the adult’s ability to access their symbolic worlds becomes central, recognizing their codes and interests, gradually introducing their own.
This dynamic becomes substantially more complex when the relational context involves unaccompanied foreign minors, particularly adolescent boys. In these cases, the educator encounters a subject who, though inhabiting the body of a teenager, carries within him an adult’s experience, often marked by loss, violence, displacement, and premature responsibility. Their body, posture, and emotional language reflect a process of growth that has been both interrupted and accelerated: they are adolescents who had to learn survival before ever experiencing. The complexity also concerns the construction of male identity, closely connected with permeating experiences of vulnerability, strength, and early responsibility.
Another element not to be underestimated is the language barrier: the presence of a linguistic and cultural mediator is often necessary but not always guaranteed. Sometimes the authenticity of the relationship, when that educational alliance begins to take shape, emerges in the most varied and informal moments, not only during prearranged settings like formal interviews. It is more likely that the relationship starts to develop on the way to school, in the car, or while taking out the trash, in those moments when time feels lighter and free from expectations. These occasions create ideal conditions for building a relationship, yet they can lose their potential if linguistic obstacles persist.
The role of the body and nonverbal communication
In educational work with unaccompanied minors, the body and posture play a central role in the construction of the relationship. Often, nonverbal communication precedes verbal expression: these adolescents may find it difficult to articulate complex emotions, fears, or needs in words, and the body becomes their primary language. Posture, gestures, gaze, and spatial positioning serve as tools through which openness, withdrawal, trust, or resistance are expressed.
The educator needs to be capable of detecting subtle signals of discomfort or availability, without forcing interaction. A closed or distant posture may indicate fear or self-protection, while small movements toward the adult, light gestures, or gradual proximity signal curiosity and willingness to engage. Even seemingly ordinary moments, walking to school together, engaging in activity, or sharing silences, become spaces of communication, where the body acts as a relational mediator, enabling a gradual and respectful approach according to the adolescent’s pace. In this sense, the educational relationship is built not only through words but also through the adult’s ability to read and respond to bodily cues, modulating their presence in a coherent, reflective, and containing manner.
This biographical condition deeply affects the possibility of building a meaningful relationship. The time of encounter, usually marked by a gradual mutual acquaintance, stretches and becomes “hostile to inhabit”: the adult experiences the sensation of denied contact, of an interaction that fails to materialize. The boys can show no interest, express no curiosity, nor do they seem eager to engage in relationships. This attitude should not be interpreted as a personal rejection but as a form of protection and defense, an adaptive strategy in response to an adult world perceived as unstable, transitory, and at times threatening.
Strategies and skills for building meaningful relationships
Within this framework, the discontinuity of educational figures, often caused by staff turnover in reception services, represents an additional critical factor. Each change of operator can reactivate, in the boy’s lived experience, the memory of loss and reinforce the belief that every bond is destined to break. Trust, a fragile and progressive resource, thus fails to take root. As a result, the operators find themselves having to build a relationship within a context of emotional disinvestment, where the absence of initial reciprocity requires a redefinition of expectations and a recognition of the educational value of waiting.
Establishing a meaningful relationship with unaccompanied minors therefore requires a paradigm shift: it is not about “making contact” in the traditional sense, but about inhabiting distance in a reflective, coherent, and patient way. It is necessary to adopt a slow and steady approach, grounded in reliable presence, continuity, communicative consistency, and emotional containment. This presence is not measured by the immediacy of outcomes, but by the quality of perceived reliability. The boys’ needs must be protected and respected; thus, one must endure the discomfort of uncertainty without being pressuring, allowing the other to listen to their own timing.
The educational challenge, then, lies in recognizing that relationship, in these contexts, is not a given but an evolving process, one marked by long durations, resistances, and fractures. Yet, precisely within this complexity lies the transformative potential of the bond: offering the boy a different adult experiences stable, non-judgmental, capable of gradually rekindling the desire for connection and trust in others. Emotional awareness helps the operator stay centered and recognize their own reactions, preventing them from becoming defensive or intrusive. Empathy, as a transversal skill, results useful in multiple levels: it enables the operator to perceive subtle signals and unexpressed needs in minors, to support them in transforming negative experiences into opportunities for personal growth, and to create a welcoming environment where they can feel safe enough to process and embrace traumatic experiences.
Ultimately, working with unaccompanied minors requires almost a situated relational competence, one that integrates intercultural knowledge, emotional awareness, and reflective capacity. Only through care for timing, consistency of presence, and suspension of judgment can relationships be built that, despite their fragility, become spaces of mutual recognition and symbolic repair.