(ANS - Kandi) - In many parts of the world school has become a place for the elite who have economic opportunities. Research done by UNESCO contains some distressing data: "In the world there are 124 million children and young people who are not in school: 52.9 million in sub-Saharan Africa, 50.9 million in Asia and the Pacific, 6.6 million in America, Latin America and the Caribbean, 8.7 million in the Arab States and 5 million scattered in other parts of the world." For the Salesians this situation constitutes a call to think and to work on what Don Bosco did for the needy and poor youth, which was to educate them.

(ANS - Madrid) - The Departments for the Missions and for Social Communication have organized the first meeting of the communication teams of the Salesian Mission Offices in Madrid from 25 to 28 April. The meeting represents a new departure in synergy: "Mission Offices, challenges to effective communication in the new contexts of communication."

(ANS - Massey) – It says in Canon Law: "The parish is a certain community of faithful stably established within a particular Church, whose pastoral care is entrusted (...) to a pastor as its own shepherd." The parish is the first field of pastoral action for the Sons of Don Bosco in many of the more than 130 countries where the Salesian Congregation has spread. For example, in New Zealand, the Salesians minister in two parishes, Massey and Avondale, two suburbs of the major city of Auckland.