SIERRA LEONE: Salesians provide support and education to youth at risk
Don Bosco Fambul is a national leader in child protection
SIERRA LEONE
(MissionNewswire) Salesian missionaries are working in Sierra Leone to ensure that youth who are at risk and vulnerable have the supportive services and education they need to thrive. Recently, Father Luca Barone, president of the Salesian Mission Office in Turin, Italy, visited the country to see the Salesian programs there.
In Freetown, the capital, Fr. Barone noted the staggering number of youth living on the streets. He said, “Four Salesian communities are working to help these young people who were once working on the streets and in prisons. They operate schools, parishes, oratories and youth centers. I was able to see concretely the work that is happening there. The funds allocated to the missions are supporting medical care, education and the dreams of street children who want to make it.”
One of the youth Fr. Barone met was Idrissa, aged 17, who spent three years on the streets. Today, he is learning car mechanics, dreams of becoming a mechanical engineer and plays soccer. Father Piotr Wojnarowski, the director of Don Bosco Fambul Center in Freetown, has become a role model for the young man.
During his trip, Fr. Barone also saw the reassembled statue of the Holy Family standing in the Fambul Therapeutic Center. It had arrived thanks to Polish volunteers in October 2025, but it had been shattered in the journey.
“There was widespread sadness, but then one of the boys at the center had an idea,” Fr. Barone said. “He believed that it could be put back together much like the boys are the center were being put back together after facing abuse and neglect. Volunteers and the young boys were able to piece it all back together.”
At the conclusion of his trip, Fr. Barone said, “In the end, the journey sends you back, but you are no longer the same. The journey teaches you not to stop, because what you must change, improve, and decide that the world is a vast place and every life saved is a victory of good over evil.”
Don Bosco Fambul is a national leader in child protection, operating the largest interim care and therapeutic centers for abused children in the country. Since it was established in 1998 to rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers, it has grown to support the country’s most vulnerable children and youth through two main campuses in Freetown. Young people in the country face significant challenges in accessing education. With too few teachers and many school buildings destroyed in the war, resources are thin. Persistently high illiteracy rates mean that an estimated 70% of Sierra Leone’s youth are unemployed or underemployed.
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Sources:
Photo courtesy of Missioni Don Bosco
ANS – Sierra Leone – The country where Don Bosco is synonymous with young lives saved
Salesian Missions – Sierra Leone
UNICEF – Sierra Leone
