During the weekend the group prepared, studied and prayed together. Looking into each other's eyes and sharing fears and expectations, the young people questioned themselves, getting to know each other better, individually and among themselves. Some were taking part in these summer experiences for the first time and had many questions. Others, in their second or third experience, had even more. And then there are those who have kept the questions for the journey, with few expectations, knowing that everything that will happen will be interpreted in the light of the Gospel, through the eyes of the people they will meet, with their hearts full of stories and their hands dirty with dust.
The host communities are ready: Cairo’s Zeitun, in Egypt; Scutari, in Albania; and Don Bosco in Naples, which will welcome those who undertake the experience in Nisida. The young people from the Salesian Youth Movement (SYM) in the Salesian Province of Southern Italy (IME) are ready with an open heart to share their time and their smiles with those they will meet.
The first group will leave for Egypt, to meet families, young people and immigrant children from Sudan. They will have the opportunity to meet and play with Egyptian youngsters in a courtyard that will make them feel at home. They will visit new places and get to know cultures different from their own, using both English and Arabic to meet new people. They will pray for neighbouring countries at war and for the growth and development of the country.
The second group will leave immediately after the return of the first, on 23 July, for Shkodra and the nearby village, to offer street entertainment and games with the local children. They will get to know a new country and its culture, visit significant places in Albanian history and pray with the community, to feel part of this corner of the IME Province beyond the Adriatic Sea.
The last group will leave in August for the Juvenile Criminal Institute (IPM) in Nisida, a small island in the Gulf of Naples. Throughout the year, young people from the "Rise Up" group had a special eye for young people in prison in Southern Italy. And now, for a couple of weeks, this group will enter IPM to entertain, offer workshops and give hope through play, to the young people who reside there. They will thus have the opportunity to share their time with young prisoners just as Don Bosco did, offering a wide variety of activities.
"It is not every day that we see a group of 30 young people who choose to leave during the summer to share two or three weeks in places that will constantly put them to the test, while offering an opportunity for internal research" the IME Social Communication Office says. They will be looking for signs that reveal the God of Love, the God of Life, the God of Joy."
Sonia Parigi
Source: Don Bosco al Sud
