Street Children at Heart of Salesian Apostolate in Kuajok

Street Children at the Heart 

of Salesian Apostolate in Kuajok

(ANS – Kuajok, South Sudan – March 30, 2022) – Only three years ago the large compound of Don Bosco Kuajok was bare land without even much agricultural use. Now Don Bosco Kuajok, the youngest Salesian community in South Sudan (2020 canonical erection) with 3 Salesians (director Fr. Leo Aorckianathan) becomes a soul of this part of Kuajok, the capital of Warrap State in South Sudan.

This new Salesian center has a primary school with 300 children and 9 teachers, a program for street children (CCC – Children Care Center) that includes a daily half-day program for de-addiction and rehabilitation of street children who are roaming the market in the center of Kuajok. A daily youth center open to the neighborhood has become a point of reference of this distant part of Kuajok, inhabited mostly by internally displaced persons.

Thanks to Bro. Lothar Wagner (who is now at Monrovia, Liberia), an adequate program of assistance and rehabilitation of the street children was started by this young community in 2019. So far, some 150 children (between 8-17 years of age) have returned to their families and some of them have even started their schooling with the help of the Salesians. Thanks to Don Bosco Mission in Bonn, Germany, which sponsors this program, the Salesians are able to focus on this educational-pastoral side of this outreach mission.

The large compound of 200x400 meters is now home to the primary school, a humble Salesian house (without rooms for Salesian guests, having only 2 possible volunteer rooms) and is being slowly developed. The Salesian lay mission partners (9 teachers and house staff) come from the local community. Don Bosco in a short time has become part of the local territory – thanks to the simple health services offered (clinic and medical dispensary) and the community car that in an emergency can take local citizens to the town hospital in case of strong malaria attack or other need.

Street children and the 3-member Salesian community have many dreams: young people without any school experience dream to become teachers, and the Salesians dream to provide more qualification to their teachers and social workers. At present Kuajok together with Wau (seat of the nearby diocese) are the 2 venues where Don Bosco’s dear children are closely accompanied by the Salesians in South Sudan.

During the 3 days of an extraordinary visitation, Fr. Vaclav Klement (in photo) had a good chance of deep insight in the hearts of these youths and their Salesians working with many lay people.

The Sudan and South Sudan Delegation of the East Africa Province has at present 3 communities in Sudan and 5 in South Sudan, with 50+ confreres. 15 of them are in initial formation; and majority are missionaries from Kenya, Tanzania, India, Vietnam, Burma, Italy, Poland, Malawi, and South Sudan.