Faced with a human tragedy of enormous proportions, such as the war in Ukraine, the involvement of Salesian realities and institutional actors cannot be ignored. For this reason, the "Don Bosco International", through its Executive Secretary, Renato Cursi, our representative to the EU in Brussels, participated yesterday, March 14, in an open consultation of the European Commission on the situation in Ukraine and represented the Salesian voice and that of all the people benefited by the Salesians in this emergency.

Having participated in that consultation, today DBI released the first notes to European Salesian organizations, informing them that the EU is releasing new funds from its budget for member states so that they can protect and integrate Ukrainian refugees. To access these funds, each organization will have to go through their respective public authorities.

In Ukraine, the Salesians who are still present are concentrating on providing food and medicine to the families who have remained: the poorest, those who do not even have the resources to flee the country.

In Poland, the Salesians continue to offer all the spaces available to them to welcome and house them. But these spaces are, of course, very limited compared to the need. Therefore, they are studying the possibility of helping the "host families" who receive refugees in their homes with support in money or goods. Considering, moreover, that many refugees intend to stay in Poland for a long time, and will necessarily need a job, the Salesians are also taking steps to bring together those offering and those seeking work.

Another special focus is on children who have arrived in Poland from Ukraine, frightened and traumatized. In Poland, the Salesians have many oratories and the Salesians intend to equip them on a child-friendly basis with crèches, play-schools, nursery schools, and elementary schools, and to employ some of the many Ukrainian girls and young women who have arrived in this exodus to take care of these children.

Finally, Slovenia acknowledges the great information work carried out by the Salesian Coordination for the emergency response to the war in Ukraine: "We regularly translate information, publish it through our channels and in this way inform people about the situation on the ground and the work carried out by the Salesians," they report.

Making known the good that is being done is a mandate left by Don Bosco himself, very often recalled also by his 10th Successor, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime.

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