Crans Montana: actions speak louder than words

Dear Champiteans,

How can we sum this up in three sentences, a message focused on hope: Nothing could have prepared us for this tragedy, which claimed the lives of three students at the College, as well as four recent alumni, and seriously injured two students. Great care is needed to support young people who are shocked by this news and these images.

Thank you to the teachers, whose job has become much more difficult since 1 January, but who are showing resilience and not giving up.

Arthur, Diana, Nathan. Alicia, Guillaume, Noa and Trystan. We will remember you.

Arda and Charles, who are in hospital: hang in there. Your brothers: Benjamin, Harry and Kemalcan: the school welcomes and supports you.

Dear families: you are examples of courage and dignity. How can we find the words to express the inexpressible? Allan, the older brother of one of the deceased, invites us, when words fail, to turn to gestures, movement and the momentum of life. Smile, hug, hold hands. Walk together, run, jump, row, ski. Live.

And Father Jean-Marc Nemer, chaplain of the College, reminds us that Switzerland is a land which, in times of trial, opposes the strength of the soul to fatalism. A discreet strength. A strength that does not deny pain or death, but refuses to let them have the last word. This strength has faces. It was embodied, for example, at Solferino, when Henri Dunant refused to look away and saw, above all, human beings. From this was born the Red Cross. Let us act on their behalf. Thank you.