Rome, Italy – April 2024 – Students from the Institute of Spiritual Theology of the Pontifical Salesian University (UPS) who specialise in the history and spirituality of St John Bosco visited the offices and archives of the Postulation for the Causes of Saints of the Salesian   on 9 April. They did so as part of the course/ seminar on the holiness of the Salesian Family. They were accompanied by Fr Gabriel Cruz Trejo, collaborator of the Postulator Fr Pierluigi Cameroni, and Spiritual Animator for the primary ADMA. In Salesian Studies curriculum, students delve into various aspects of the history, spirituality and pedagogy of St John Bosco. Taken into account are aspects of the spirituality and history of St Francis de Sales, of St Mary Mazzarello, of the groups of the Salesian Family, of Salesian pedagogy and the preventive system, of Don Bosco's spiritual proposal for young people, the development of the Salesian Congregation. During the seminar on the holiness of the Salesian Family, students learn about the progress of the processes leading to canonisation; together they study the case of Don Bosco's canonisation. Students from Japan, Angola, Papua New Guinea, India and Congo, individually delve into the case of one of the holy candidates: Blesseds, Venerables and  Servants of God of the Salesian Family. A tradition that has disappeared for some years has thus been recovered thanks to the new headquarters at the Zefferino Namuncurá community in Via della Bufalotta in Rome, a few kilometres from the UPS.

Torre Annunziata, Italy – March 2024 - Twenty years since the murder of Matilde Sorrentino, twenty years of life of "Mamma Matilde" Childrens Community in Torre Annunziata and the"Small steps, big dreams" Association who are members of Salesians for Social Matilde Sorrentino was a woman and a mother from Torre Annunziata (Naples), who in 1997 denounced a pedophile ring in her son's school. He was also a victim of abuse. In 2004, she was killed, shot in front of her son. In that same year we were finishing the work of the "Small steps big dreams" in the childrens community in Torre Annunziata. "It seemed right to us to call it Mamma Matilde: here we welcome many young people who do not have a mother and we have chosen to make Matilde Sorrentino ‘enter’ the community with her courage, her dignity and her practicality", explains Rino Balzano, social worker in the Community. A few days before Matilda's murder, Annalisa Durante was killed in Naples. Twenty years later, the Salesians in Torre Annunziata wanted to remember Annalisa and Matilde with two conferences. The first, on 22 March with young people from the communities and the oratory at Torre Annunziata who met some relatives of the victims and at the end gave rise to a procession to Matilde's house. On 26 March, the Salesian house in Torre Annunziata hosted the conference twenty years after the death of Matilde Sorrentino to keep the memory of ‘Mamma Courage’ alive. It was sponsored by the Municipality of Torre Annunziata, involving various personalities, during which the story of Matilde was remembered and the importance of the work of anti-violence centres was stressed.

(ANS – Catania) – The "Educational poverty: the Salesian presence and proposal in Sicily" Conference was held on Saturday, 6 April at the Don Bosco theatre in the Salesian Institute at Cibali, in Catania, promoted by the Salesians of the Saint Paul Province of Sicily (ISI) and by the Sicilian Territorial Committee of "Salesians for Social APS". At the end of the conference, this committee held its own meeting in order to renew its commitment and qualified dedication to the service of its beneficiaries.

(ANS – Rome) – The synergy between the Salesian Youth Sports Centres (PGS) and the Pontifical Salesian University (UPS) in Rome gave rise to the conference on "Education and culture of safeguarding in sport. Towards the establishment of models of protection and prevention", which will take place on 13 April, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., at the UPS facilities in Rome.

(ANS – Mestre) – What does it mean to have a child with High Cognitive Potential? How do you recognise this "endowment"? What educational pathways and support methodologies exist to support particularly gifted children and their parents? In the commitment to educate and accompany all minors, the Salesians of the North-East Italy Province (INE) have decided to also pay attention to those boys and girls who show special gifts and abilities for their age, so that they can mature and express their full potential.

(ANS – Rome) – As part of an Official Visit to West Africa, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, will get to know and visit, on Saturday 6 April 2024, the Don Bosco centre in Ashaiman, Ghana.