Forecasts indicate that this year around 10,000 children, adolescents, and young people will participate in the summer activities of the youth centers of the Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. These initiatives are possible thanks to the collaboration of 1,500 volunteers who offer their free time to be at the service of others.
In the current context, the Don Bosco Confederation believes that ordinary accompanying and leisure activities and free time must be reinvented and reoriented in a local dimension. Likewise, they argue that it is time to act in neighborhoods and villages, giving adequate solutions and looking to the local youth center as a reference point.
The Confederation's proposal is to adapt, redesign and innovate its activities, making the reality of children and young people compatible with the established health and hygiene measures. In this context, they launch the Verano en positivo (A Positive Summer) campaign, which aims to make visible all the activities that take place in youth centers, to provide healthy and ecological resources for leisure, to transmit to families and minors a reassuring message and trust in the proposed activities, to motivate the youth centers not to interrupt their activity and to publicize their value proposition.
With the #VeranoEnPositivo campaign, the Don Bosco Confederation defends the commitment of the Salesian Youth Centers not to stand still, working locally with responsibility, always putting the person and his or her needs at the center, paying special attention to young people at risk of exclusion.
The Confederation believes that during this health crisis, children, adolescents, and their families were left aside when it came to establishing measures or making decisions.
As part of its responsibility and charism, the Don Bosco Confederation will continue to take care of children and young people despite the challenges and difficulties that this pandemic is posing, and hopes to transform all this into a new opportunity to assist and accompany young people, with the conviction that the needs generated by the current situation make the work of the volunteers, the Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians absolutely necessary.
Today Don Bosco's phrase "The happiness of nations depends on the healthy education of young people" weighs more than ever in the hearts of all those who make up the Confederation.
Salvi Macías
Source: Salesianos.info
