Salesian Houses Are Oases to Help Young People

Salesian Houses Are Oases 

to Help Young People

(ANS – Lviv, Ukraine – April 6, 2022) – According to their own spirit of hospitality, Salesians all over the world never make distinctions when it comes to caring for people in need; but for children, teens, and young people there is, by charism, a heightened focus. About 2,000 Ukrainian minors have been helped and accompanied; here we limit the count to those who continue to be cared for in Ukraine and those taken in by Poland and Slovakia. Many others could be added if an immediate census were to be carried out in the other front-line organizations. The Salesians host, console, help, and do their best to bring a smile back to their faces, even if only for a moment, in the conviction that, as Jesus said, "Whenever you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40).

Even in this emergency, Salesian houses do not lose their connotation: most of their activities are directed toward education, socialization, and assistance in every dimension of the young person.

“First, our schools serve children during their normal hours of work,” explains Fr. George Menamparampil, head of the Salesian General Coordination for Emergency Response. “Furthermore, our youth centers are open for children every day for daytime activities. And in any case, the minors who currently reside in Salesian homes receive lodging, food, and all the help they need 24 hours a day, including education, recreation, and the care that every child or young person needs.”

Salesian centers in Ukraine have all remained open. “We asked ourselves what we could do and decided to make ourselves available to the people, those who were living there and the refugees who’d arrive,” Fr. Daniel Antunez, president of Missioni Don Bosco of Turin, told Avvenire, an Italian Catholic daily newspaper, after visiting Salesian works in Ukraine and Poland as part of this emergency.

Today, in Ukraine devastated by the bombings, about 680 minors – equal to 80% of the total – continue to attend classes remotely at Salesian educational centers; youth centers are still a corner of refuge and hope for 208 of them; and 70 children, teens, and young people are properly housed in the works of Don Bosco’s sons – for a total of 958 minors.

In Poland, there are 398 minors placed in Salesian schools, 309 in youth centers, and 210 welcomed into houses – for a total of 917.

In Slovakia, instead, there are 60 children in youth centers and 50 welcomed into Salesian houses – another 110. Thus, the overall total in the three countries considered rises to 1,985 minors being supported.

From Moldova, there is no precise count of minors, but it can be said that the Salesian house in Chisinau is currently hosting around 40 refugees, and that since the beginning of the war the Salesian center has offered a space of refreshment and peace to over 1,000 people.

In the face of a tragedy as immense and senseless as war, Don Bosco’s sons can do only their best to help physically and spiritually their neighbors, and among them in particular, minors. “We work to meet people’s needs for food and housing,” concludes Fr. Antunez, not before renewing the typically Salesian invitation to pray to Mary Help of Christians: “She is the mother of our Congregation; Don Bosco said that if we pray to Mary Help of Christians, the miracle is certain.”