Programs available in more than 600 territories across country

(MissionNewswire) Salesians for Social network in Italy is working to ensure that youth at-risk have the possibility to live healthy lives and have access to the education they need to thrive. The Salesian organization supports thousands of youth every year in more than 600 territories across the country. Programs include 97 socio-educational programs, 45 day centers and 33 foster family homes.

In the 33 foster homes, close to 300 youth, aged 12-18, are taken in at the request of the social services and with the provisions of the juvenile court. Father Francesco Preite, national president of Salesians for Social, explained, “Many of these children and adolescents have experiences of abandonment, violence or loneliness behind them. Each carries within them a wound, but also a possibility for a better future. We are inspired by Don Bosco’s Preventive System, which focuses on relationships and the integral growth of the person, also in its spiritual dimension.”

In Italy, there are about 33,000 youth living far from their families of origin, as well as more than 16,000 unaccompanied foreign minors.

Fr. Preite continued, “Our family homes are not merely welfare places, but homes where one can grow and learn to believe in oneself and in others. Our objective is not just to protect, but to give back a future.”

Inside the family homes, youth find a safe and inclusive environment that provides them opportunities for growth including school, sports, professional training, healthy relationships and an educational community that supports them every day. Even after the age of 18, Salesians for Social continues to support youth in finding a home or a job or continuing their studies.

Multidisciplinary teams, made up of educators and psychologists, guarantee a continuous presence, 24 hours a day, offering listening, stability and ongoing support.

Fr. Preite added, “Poverty is not a statistic. It is an open wound in the heart of our country. Every child excluded from opportunities is a collective defeat. In Italy, according to ISTAT, more than 1.3 million children live in poverty. Isolated projects or emergency responses are no longer enough. We need structural policies, stable resources and political courage to guarantee all minors protection, health, safety, well-being, participation and equality. We need a new social pact that restores dignity to the most fragile children and adolescents. They are not ‘problems to be managed’, but lives to be enhanced, citizens of today and tomorrow.”

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Sources:

ANS Photo (usage permissions and guidelines must be requested from ANS)

ANS – Italy – Appeal by ‘Salesians for Social’: it is a priority to permanently invest in childhood and adolescence and build a new educational pact

Salesian Missions – Italy

World Bank – Italy