IV. SALESIAN WORK FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN DIFFICULTY

1.1 Special care for young people in difficulty - a constant Salesian commitment

The option for poor youngsters, abandoned and at risk, has always been at the heart and life of Don Bosco’s Salesian Family from the beginning right down to the present day. It has brought about responses everywhere in a great variety of structures and services in line with educative choices inspired by the preventive criterion.

The new situation of today’s society challenges us to find new initiatives. Poverty has become ever more prevalent to the degree which makes it a tragic dimension of the lives of many individuals and communities, a large proportion of them youngsters, until it is now a global structural reality. We may also refer to new kinds of poverty and hence to new kinds of emargination; among these we are particularly concerned about those which compromise the possibility of growth of young persons, and which lead many of them to serious problems and in some cases to deviancy.

Our vocation as Salesians will not allow us to remain at ease in the face of a situation like this, which we find today not only in the Third World but indeed everywhere. It prompts us to commit ourselves to provide some response to the more urgent situations of youngsters in difficulty (GC 21, 158; GC22, 6. 72; GC 23, 203-214). This response is expressed:

• in all our works and foundations in which we aim at facing and even foreseeing these situations and needs, through a new style of presence and acceptance of everyone, an integral educational service centered on the individual, especially those most in need, on social formation and the promoting of a culture of solidarity, and on a commitment for justice and the transformation of society (cf. C 33);
• in specific works in the field of youth problems where we offer to the youngsters in difficulty concrete responses, within a process of integral growth. Everywhere creative solutions are being provided in line with the context: works for street-children, works for assistance to emigrants, care of youngsters with family problems, assistance to young prisoners, works in the field of drug- addiction with programs for prevention, treatment and subsequent follow-up, alternative educational services for school dropouts, works for insertion in social environments, centers of social advancement of various kinds, involvement in organisms of human advancement, etc.

1.2 Salesian characteristics of works and services for young people in difficulty.

Many of these works and services present new models from a pedagogical and Salesian standpoint and require professional training, specialized programs, and collaboration with other civil institutions. In these works too better forms of lay participation and of volunteer work are being developed.

This reality demands of us that we make the Salesian identity explicit in our efforts to meet and prevent the various forms of distress, and to share this specific element with the laity so as to build with them a Salesian educative project.

The following are the fundamental elements of this identity:

1.2.1 A family environment animated by a community

Young people in difficulty, the majority of them with family problems, need a family environment where they can find a favorable atmosphere and conditions for the rebuilding and reorientation of their lives, where they can live a spontaneous and educative rapport and dialogue in autonomy and interdependence, so as to grow together in solidarity, shared relationships and mutual service.

This environment needs community animation, in which the SDB community is the animating nucleus of many other lay educators within the provincial project.

1.2.2 An integral educative project in line with the Christian identity

In these works and services the aim is not only to meet the problems and primary needs of those to whom the work is directed, but to help them to develop all their personal resources towards an integral human and social advancement.

With this action of human advancement, salvation is proclaimed and brought about by including a gospel image in every element of the work, and by sharing with the youngsters a project and journey of faith as far as they are capable of such things.

1.2.3 The choice of education with the preventive criterion

Poverty and emargination are not only a purely economic phenomenon, but "a reality which touches individual consciences and challenges the mentality of society. Education is therefore a fundamental element for their prevention and suppression, and is also a more specific and original contribution which we, as Salesians, can provide" (Letter of Rector Major, Fr. J. E. Vecchi, "He had compassion on them", AGC 359).

We educate starting from personal convictions and motivations, with affability and a personal rapport of cordiality and dialogue, an unconditional acceptance which awakens self-esteem and the awareness of personal dignity and value.

A very important aspect in these works and services is the preventive criterion which tries to avoid making negative or deviant situations any worse, to make people capable of autonomy and of the responsible management of their own lives, and to change social and cultural situations which are at the root of emargination.

Depending on the kind of youngsters these works cater to, some of them provide direct interventions for their rescue or re-education. We know that rescue interventions are not our specific field of work, but "the educative strength of the preventive system becomes evident also in its capacity for rescuing boys who have been abandoned but who still preserve some seeds of goodness" (GC22, 72). Don Bosco presents his system as the most adequate for the re-education of boys who have already been delinquents or otherwise seriously emarginated.

1.2.4 With poor means, open to collaboration and linkage with other similar works and institutions

Not only do we work for the young who are poor, but we do so in solidarity and communion with them. We live the spirituality of poverty, and, while not forgetting creative efforts to find the necessary economic resources, we live with trust in Providence and faith in the efficacy of poverty when our first concern is for the young and their education.

This attitude makes us open to a more intense linkage and collaboration with the many similar institutions of the Church and society operating in the neighborhood.

2. THE EDUCATIVE AND PASTORAL COMMUNITY IN THESE WORKS

Through the Oratory Don Bosco wanted to offer abandoned youngsters a true family where they could develop and prepare themselves for life; this is why he considered the community so important.

In all our works, but especially in those of this kind, we must overcome "the excessive individualism which led to some of these works being considered the private concern of individual confreres who were responsible for their foundation", and move towards "a greater integration of initiatives and of confreres working together in the provincial project" (VECCHI J., o.c.).

2.1 Characteristics of the EPC in works in the sector of youthful distress

• A familiar style of life and organization, in which everyone (starting with the educators themselves) shows human qualities, i.e. contact with and closeness to the youngsters, familiarity, availability, assistance, kindness, etc.
• A clear knowledge of the identity of our particular line of approach on the part of all the animators, especially the lay ones. This demands:
  • a continual deepening of the motivations underlying the options made , and a renewing of the values of the preventive system which inspire them;
  • the preparation necessary for applying the project in a professional manner;
  • acquiring a more accurate knowledge of the reality of the world of youth emargination, and of the culture prevailing in the area concerned;
  • an ongoing study of the preventive system, so as to give effect to it in daily circumstances;
  • continued formation in the social dimension of charity and how to realize it in this kind of work (GC 23, 209-214), and in the spirituality of poverty.
• The active involvement of all, especially the youngsters themselves. This experience will be a school for them as regards both the process and its outcome, in the sense that they themselves become educators of the young in either the present work or in another of the same kind.
• A clear definition of the tasks and responsibilities of the different structures and functions within the work, encouraging their complementary collaboration, Clarity is needed also in the definition and management of programs and financial arrangements with regard to other civil or ecclesial institutions to which reference must be made.

2.2 Some practical criteria to be kept in mind with respect to the EPC in works of this kind:

• The existence of the EPC itself, even though it may be small and flexible, according to the criteria approved by the Provincial and his Council;
• The elaboration and realization of the SEPP with the participation of all, following the lines of the SEPP of the Province;
• A rapport of communication and help with the other works of the Province, by developing a series of complementary projects and interventions;
• A systematic linkage and interrelationship with families, with the local area and its institutions, with specialists (on a professional or voluntary basis), and with other institutions or associations working in the same field, promoting at the same time both autonomy and interdependence.

3.1 The following are characteristics of our educative and pastoral project in these works:

3.1.1 It is integral and organic

We start from an attitude of welcoming and keeping close to youngsters in difficulties so as to start up an educative process for the development of the innate good within them, namely their intensely human resources which coincide with evangelical values. This helps them to become Positively integrated into their own social environment and prepares them for a meeting with Jesus Christ (GC 23, 291-292).

This project, realized in many ways and at different times according to the needs of the individual youngster, offers specific and often rapid responses to their needs and problems.

The witness of the educators and of the educative community, the welcoming family atmosphere, the defense and advancement of personal dignity, become a proclamation of Christ and his saving design, and an offering of freedom and fullness of life.

3.1.2 With an educative and preventive slant

Our educative project, though providing assistance and social protection, does not consist only in the material help which is offered (meeting an emergency or solving a passing problem), but goes to the root of the situation to discover the real causes, so that interventions can be aimed at the transformation of these roots.

Prevention, therefore, is not only a means of alleviating distress, or preventing its repetition, or avoiding its spreading to others; it goes further than this, being a quality intrinsic to the very education we offer.

It is a systematic prevention in the social network: for individuals, for society, for institutions, for processes, for human interactions which are the cause of these phenomena; its influence is felt at a strictly educational level (individual persons), at a cultural level (the maturing of a new social mentality), and at a political level (the exercise of power for the common good).

Competent salvage interventions are done if necessary.

3.1.3 With patient animation, of a gradual and professional kind

The situation of youngsters arriving at these works, and our preventive style ensure that the development of the project proceeds on the part of the educators:

• with realistic hope and optimism, deriving from the loving kindness of the educators, which manifests our faith in education and our conviction concerning the humanizing force of Christ’s grace;
• at a gradual pace consistent with the educative process, which can meet each individual where he happens to be, and stimulate his personal and community growth in line with a process suggested by the SEPP of the work;
• and in a professional manner, i.e. with educators who have not only the Salesian identity but also the preparation necessary for this service.

3.1.4 Which becomes also a process of transformation for the area and the society here and now

At the same time that it prepares and helps youngsters to become seriously inserted into the locality, the educative work of these foundations must promote a transformation of the mentality of the neighborhood itself and collaborate in the enhancement of the society here and now. As we continue to reflect on the reality of poverty and emargination which surrounds us on all sides, it must exert an influence on the environment in which the young people live, and especially on families, and give rise to a systematic collaboration between the various institutions and educators working there.

3.2 Important aspects of our project

• To offer "young people in difficulty" a process of integral growth in which they can confront distress, develop their positive resources and become good Christians and upright citizens; in more concrete terms:
  • to offer them solutions to their primary needs, especially for survival and security, so that they can get back to normality with self-esteem and overcome attitudes of dependence;
  • to promote their cultural and technical qualification for normal insertion into family life, work, and the social and political arena;
  • to help them to experience and personally assimilate the educative and evangelical values of autonomy, freedom, responsibility, love, service, self-control, tolerance, etc.;
  • to help them to discover and experience the loving and fatherly presence of God in their life, and to accompany them with patience and confidence in their progressive opening to the Christian faith and in their growth in it.
• To help them to create a new mentality and culture "which will give rise to changes of vision and criteria through gestures and actions... It is a matter of promoting a culture of one’s neighbor of sobriety.... of availability and free sharing, of justice understood as attention to everyone’s right to a dignified life and, more directly, to the involvement of persons and institutions in a work of broad prevention, and of acceptance and support for those who have need of it" (VECCHI J., o.c.); a new culture, which will promote evangelical values.
• To make concrete their sharing in a liberating commitment for justice and peace, by helping to build a society more worthy of man (C 33), and helping in the transformation of the present society which is structurally unjust (‘structural sin’); and this through the activity of the work itself, through specific projects and interventions in the area, and by collaborating with other institutions in the elaboration of policies of an educational, family, youth and urban-development kind, which can do much to prevent and overcome the structural causes of distress.

3.3 Stages and interventions:

Although every work will tailor its own interventions in accordance with its particular circumstances and possibilities, here we can suggest some progressive stages and interventions which need continual attention:

• Get closer, be interested in finding out more about the situation of the youngsters, and share their interests;
• Offer them a family welcome in the Salesian house; this breaks down barriers of diffidence and awakens the desire to begin an educative process;
• Propose practical interventions in line with needs and availability, e.g.:
  • answers to the need for survival: food, home, bed, health care etc.;
  • answers to the need for security: a home that welcomes them, keeping close to them, loving kindness, etc.;
  • interventions of a restructuring or salvaging kind (if needed);
  • answers to the need for growth relationships: helping the youngsters to develop a normal rapport with themselves and with others (a healthy common life with their companions and all the members of the EPC, and with the various elements that are at their service - sense of belonging).
• Begin more systematic and demanding interventions towards a process of integral growth:
  • in the line of education:
    • study and school (sometimes informal): critical insertion into knowledge and culture;
    • workshops for technical formation: training for work at some trade;
    • free-time activities, accompanied by the educators (sport, music, theatre, art, reading, etc.);
    • possibility of guidance towards a trade or profession, and educative pastoral dialogue with educators;
    • participation in local events and celebrations.
  • in the line of evangelization:
    • get to know their religious world and offer them experiences to stimulate the growth of their religious dimension;
    • religious teaching;
    • first Christian thought: good morning, good night, days of reflection, etc.; ) catechesis: for first Communion, for Confirmation, etc.;
    • celebrations in the house or participation in those in the parish or other places;
    • possibility of joining in group activity and movements; ) growth from small commitments to bigger ones;
    • formation of Christian animators.
• Help them to become normally inserted with autonomy, freedom and responsibility into social life, their family of origin, the family of which they now form a part, work, social commitment, etc.
• Accompany them in the development of their family, social and Christian life, and in their experience of employment.
• Offer a specific formation to make them capable of being educators in their turn of other youngsters in difficulty.

Additional Reading:

VECCHI J., "Il Nostro impegno per ragazzi e giovani a rischio", in Dossier PG Esperienze a confronto., N. 2, 1987, pp.63- 70.