"There is no future in Venezuela," says Roque Díaz. "It is very difficult to survive," says Ilich Márquez. Painful stories and bitter testimonies repeat themselves and recur. The Salesians in Peru do not have "deaf ears". Having listened to the clamor of the thousands of Venezuelans, they have provided a solution.
The national superintendency of the migration of Peru has established that over 353 thousand Venezuelans have entered Peruvian territory. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Venezuelan population that has arrived in Peru in recent months consists mainly of young men whose age varies between 18 and 34 years, with a higher level of education.
"To put structures at the service of the pastoral care of migrants that do not currently have a service in our mission" is one of the concrete actions that the Salesians have debated, in a continental meeting in Quito - Ecuador (August 2018), on "The Youth Mobility Challenge" in America".
The Salesians of Peru listened to the cries of the Venezuelan brothers and today, August 24, they inaugurate a great new initiative for the benefit of the thousands of migrants – a house.
The house destined to host the Venezuelan brothers is the old vocational training house of Magdalena del Mar and will be named "Casa Don Bosco". This social activity is flanked by the Episcopal Conference, the Salesian Publishing House, the Food Bank of Peru and the Don Bosco Foundation, the latter being the organizing institution of the eminent humanitarian initiative.
Filippo Grandi (UNHCR), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Director General of IIM, William Lacy Swing, have called for greater support from the international community to the countries and communities of the region. A region that is receiving an increasing number of refugees and migrants from Venezuela. One of the institutions to have listened to the cry of the brothers of Venezuela is precisely the sons of Don Bosco, who are also children of a migrant.
