Senegal - Salesian Professional Training: ongoing pursuit of excellence

19 October 2017
Senegal - Salesian Professional Training: ongoing pursuit of excellence

(ANS - Thiès) - Located on a plateau 70 km east of Dakar, in the direction of Bamako, Thiès is an industrial city with a steadily growing population as well as an important railway junction. Much of the population, in fact, works in the railway yards, its workshops, or in the aluminum and phosphate mines of which the area is rich, or in the manufacturing of tapestries typical of the area. Here the Salesian presence dates back to 1978 when missionaries working at Saint-Louis founded a center in the area, and later managed to build a vocational training school, the Don Bosco Center, which has been operating for almost 30 years.

In a city with a strong industrial vocation, the Salesian Vocational Training School represents an important point of reference for all the area's young people, especially for those from the working class neighborhood that hosts the school. In a place like Senegal, where the unemployment rate is 48%, the Salesian Center offers professional growth opportunities that easily translate into jobs: 60% of the students who attend and graduate from the carpentry, mechanics, or electro-technical courses manage to find work in the city.

Currently attended by 115 male students and 20 female students, the school forms not only skilled workers but also honest citizens and good Christians who can contribute to the development of their country without seeking alternatives in illegal migration.

At present, the machines and tools of the workshops in which future carpenters, mechanics and electricians learn their trade are worn out due to their over-extended use, while others are technologically outdated. Even in this case, the Salesians of Don Bosco have worked out and found a good solution to continue offering high-level training: they contacted several companies and finally managed to find a technical school in Poitiers, France, willing to donate machinery, tools and utensils.

What remains to be done is to ship and install the machinery and equipment, operations that represent a cost of their own.

Thanks, however, to the contribution of "Don Bosco Missions" and the many benefactors collaborating towards fulfilling this goal, the young people of Thiès will soon be able to learn and grow to the highest standards.

InfoANS

ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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