It began with the initiative of Fr Juan Linares SDB, accompanied by a group of young people belonging to the Youth Centre of the María Auxiliadora project, who responded to the situation of abandonment and poverty experienced by child workers at that time, and thus the first local centre of the Network emerged, named by the children themselves as: ‘Canillitas con Don Bosco’ (Newsboys with Don Bosco).
In this way, other local centres emerged in the different works where we Salesians have a presence in the Dominican Republic. Currently, the MDB NETWORK has 12 local centres located in 4 provinces of the country and in the National District. Of these, 5 are residential homes, 2 of which are for girls and female adolescents and are run by a group of the Salesian Family, the Parish Missionaries of Mary Help of Christians.
- Canillitas con Don Bosco, D. N.
- Santo Domingo Savio School Home, D. N.
- Quédate con Nosotros Foster Home, Santo Domingo Este.
- Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia Home. D.N.
- Doña Chucha Girls' School Home, D. N.
- Casa Pinardi Home, D. N.
- Apprentices with Don Bosco, D. N.
- Chiripero Children with Don Bosco, D. N.
- Friends of Dominic Savio, La Vega
- Don Bosco Amigo, Valverde, Mao
- Sur Joven, Barahona
- Mano a Mano con Don Bosco, Jarabacoa.
We develop a staged educational process that seeks the human, social and spiritual development of our beneficiaries, in a suitable family environment, which involves a journey. These stages are:
- Search
- Welcome
- Socialisation
- Accompaniment
- Testimony and Service
- Socio-political Commitment.
The profile of the people we help includes street children, unaccompanied migrant minors, working children, school dropouts and children with low levels of schooling, children living in extreme poverty and child victims of violence.
We support and educate the beneficiaries and their families through a series of programmes in education, sport, culture, art, technical training, employment, the environment, school monitoring, faith education, the promotion of human rights, vocational guidance, the development of manual skills and abilities, among others, all of them framed within the dimensions stipulated in the Salesian Youth Ministry Frame of Reference
The Salesian Province of the Antilles has taken on the challenge of prioritising these preferential recipients through the Boys and Girls with Don Bosco NETWORK, which is a way of conceiving of the oratory today, accompanying the education and human and social development of thousands and thousands of boys and girls in our inspectorate.
May it allow us, in these 40 years that we are celebrating, to continue to fulfil the Salesian mission of being signs and bearers of the love of God to young people.
By Marlon Herrera, Executive Director MDB,
Salesian Cooperator
