On 8 February 2022, less than three months ago, the Salesians of Don Bosco celebrated the 170th anniversary of the first apprenticeship contract signed in Italy. Indeed, on 8 February 1852, in the midst of the first industrial revolution in Turin, Don Bosco signed this contract along with the young apprentice Giuseppe Odasso, his father and his employer, in order to guarantee for the respect the rights and duties incorporated in the contract itself. These rights included a limited daily and weekly time for work, access to decent payment and quality training, rest on feast days, including a weekly work-free day on Sunday. Less than two centuries later, the VET centers ispired to this original experience are spread over the five continents. In some of these regions, such as Africa, India and South-Eastern Asia, they are also grouped in regional networks of Salesian VET providers, also known as « Don Bosco Tech » or « DB Tech » networks. This hasn’t been the case for Europe so far, for national or sub-regional structures have emerged long time ago. The DBWAVE project represented a unique opportunity to explore the case for a regional network of Salesian VET in Europe, towards a possible « Don Bosco Tech Europe ».
In fact, in 2011 a group of teachers, trainers and project managers from Salesian VET centers in Europe, started a cooperation and coordination with the support of the Salesians’ Youth Ministry Department. Since then, such a group has been meeting every year in a different European country, in order to advance the cooperation and support each other in realizing international mobilities of VET staff and students, as well as exploring the possibility to join more advanced projects funded by the European Union. In 2019 the DBWAVE project was prepared, with CNOS-FAP (Italy) as a lead applicant, and approved for funding by the European Commission. Six more VET networks from the Salesians of Don Bosco’s Provinces in Europe joined the project (AMDB from France, DBOC from BEN Province, the GER and SMX Provinces, respectively from Germany and Spain, SZIF from Hungary, Tech Don Bosco from SSM Province), plus the Don Bosco International (DBI), liaison office of the Salesians of Don Bosco at the European Institutions in Brussels.
The DBWAVE project enabled each partner to develop its strategy for internationalization, through peer learning activities and the use of the peer review methodology. The project also funded the realization of an online database to track the formative success of the students benefiting the VET of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Europe. From a survey realized by DBWAVE partners in 2021, it emerges that the average of the Salesian students’ formative success in Europe is the 88.5%: after one year from their qualification/diploma, the 34,46% of qualified VET students have a stable occupation/job, the 54% is continuing their studies towards a diploma or a higher VET path, while only the 7,3% is still unemployed (5% of the target group did not reply to the survey). Such data confirm that not only the VET provided by the Salesians of Don Bosco is an integral educative proposal, providing young people with values and soft skills for inclusion in society and for a lifelong learning, but it is also relevant for their immediate transition from school to work, avoiding the risk of being trapped in unemployment or in a NEET (not in employment, education and training) condition.
After two days of partners’ meeting, the DBWAVE final conference was hosted by Salesianos Trinidad in Sevilla, Spain, on Thursday 28th of April. Over 50 people attended the conference, which was providing simultaneous translation in English, Spanish and Italian, in physical presence, while over 100 participants followed the live streaming remotely. Beyond the leaders of the thematic activities representing the project’s partners, the conference featured Fr George Tharanyil, Director of Don Bosco Tech Africa, and Giulia Meschino, Director and Secretary General at EVTA, as speakers, as well as Markus Espeter, Programme Manager at EVBB, as a trainer for the afternoon training session on the Centers for Vocational Excellence.
The DBWAVE database, which at this stage is collecting data on the training courses provided by the Salesians of Don Bosco in 6 European countries, can be consulted registering to the DBWAVE website. All the publications of the DBWAVE project, including guidelines for the creation of Job Services Offices in VET centers, can be downloaded freely on the same website. The project is now over, but the DBWAVE community is still alive. Indeed, some traning material is available for entities who sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the DBWAVE partners. Over 50 organizations from different EU countries have already signed such agreements. The potential is there for a possible « «DB Tech Europe», supporting the internationalization of Salesian VET centers in this region and connecting them with all the stakeholders of the « skills ecosystem » in Europe, towards an effective network of vocational excellence.
