Across the territory of the Jesuit Conference of European Provincials (JCEP), Jesuit works are increasingly called to respond to situations of deep social exclusion, forced migration, and environmental degradation. In fidelity to the Universal Apostolic Preferences, Jesuit communities and apostolic works seek not only to serve at the margins, but to be present there—to walk alongside excluded communities, to accompany young people, to care for our common home, and to discern God’s presence in complex and often painful realities. The experience described below, lived by the Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM) in Almería together with young volunteers, offers a concrete and embodied example of how these preferences take flesh in one of the most vulnerable territories of southern Europe.

Níjar is today one of the most extreme territories of residential exclusion in Spain—“ground zero of invisible misery,” as a recent national press report described it. In its agricultural fields, thousands of people live in informal settlements made of plastic sheets, wood, and discarded materials, without regular access to water, electricity, or sanitation. These are spaces marked by precarity, isolation, and constant risk—fires, waste accumulation, disease—but also by a form of community life that persists and resists. In this context, the Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM-Almería) and the Jesuit community have made a deliberate choice to “shift” their place of presence: not merely to intervene from the outside, but to situate themselves there—to share time, walk the land, and allow themselves to be affected by the reality.

It was within this framework that the initiative carried out in the Don Domingo de Arriba settlement (Atochares) took place—an intense experience of volunteering and shared life, symbolically framed by the season of Advent and by a sequence of particularly meaningful dates: 5 December, International Volunteer Day; 10 December, Human Rights Day; and 18 December, International Migrants Day. Over two days, seventeen university students from the pastoral group of Colegio Sagrada Familia de Moratalaz (Madrid) shared physical work, conversation, and presence with the residents of the settlement, accompanied by the SJM team. This was neither an isolated gesture nor a one-off event, but a concentrated time of encounter, service, and mutual listening.

The experience embodied with particular clarity Universal Apostolic Preference 2: walking with the excluded. It was not about “going to see” or “going to help” from the outside, but about entering, remaining, and allowing reality to speak for itself. For many of the young people, it was their first time truly entering a settlement. “Some of us had been close to these realities before, but never so deeply inside,” explained Jorge, the group coordinator. The impact was profound: seeing the living conditions, understanding what it means to “leave home” when your home is a shack, and realising how the environment and public policies push people into invisibility. Walking with the excluded here meant looking without filters, listening without haste, and sharing an experience that unsettles and transforms from within.

Universal Apostolic Preference 3—offering hope to young people—was present in a twofold way. On the one hand, among the settlement residents themselves, most of them young migrants, whose dignity and capacity to actively improve their environment were recognised. On the other hand, among the young volunteers, who found a real space for commitment and for being confronted by life. Carlos, 19 years old, spoke of a “mountain of emotions”: the initial shock, the harshness of what they encountered, the feeling of not knowing how to react—and at the same time, the discovery of an experience that transforms and leaves a lasting mark. In contrast to narratives that portray young people as passive or disengaged, this experience revealed a youth capable of bearing discomfort, working hard, and allowing themselves to be questioned.

The day was also a concrete expression of Universal Apostolic Preference 4: caring for our common home. The removal of large accumulations of waste, the cleaning of an area affected by fire, and the creation of a small garden with native plants were not merely practical tasks. They were acts of integral ecology in one of the most degraded areas of the region. Juanjo, 18 years old, emphasised the value of community: people from across the settlement working together to improve what they consider their home, even in conditions that “can hardly be called living.” Caring for our common home here meant reducing risks, restoring dignity to the environment, and affirming that even the most neglected spaces deserve to be habitable.

And in the midst of all this, discreetly yet powerfully, Universal Apostolic Preference 1—showing the way to God—made itself present. Not through religious discourse, but through shared experience. Nuria, 22 years old, expressed it clearly: God was present in the welcome offered by the Jesuit team, in the residents who came to help after long working days, in the group that moved forward together despite uncertainty, in difficult conversations, and in the sunset that closed the day. God present in a humanity that meets, recognises its vulnerability, and seeks a full life rich in opportunity.

Among shacks, cleared waste, and newly planted soil, the Universal Apostolic Preferences ceased to be a theoretical framework and became embodied life. Walking with others, offering hope, caring for creation, and allowing oneself to encounter God emerged as inseparable dimensions of a single experience. They did not resolve structural injustice, but they did point to a path: a faith that allows itself to be touched by reality, and a form of citizenship built through encounter. A faith that does justice, and a justice that seeks reconciliation and flows from faith.