(ANS – Rome) – The seminar entitled "Vocational training and employment policies" took place on Wednesday 8 November 2023 in Rome, at the headquarters of Palazzo Giustiniani (Senate of the Republic). The System of Higher Technical Institutes (ITS) for the relaunch of the entire professional supply chain ", organised by the Centro Nazionale Opere Salesiane – Formazione Aggiornamento Professionale (CNOS-FAP) and the consulting company PTSCLAS, on the initiative of Senator Matteo Gelmetti.

Italy - October 2023 - Two sessions were held from 17 to 27 October,  one in Florence and the other in Genzano Rome, for the training of the Universal Civil Service Volunteers from the Salesian Central Italy (ICC) Province. The two sessions hosted a total of about 150 volunteers aged between 18 and 28, who are serving in various Salesian works in the eight regions which make up the ICC. On the last day, they were visited by the 'Ladri di Carrozzelle' (wheelchair thieves), a 30-year-old Italian musical group known for  being made up mainly of artists with disabilities. Paolo Falessi, their founder and former pupil of the Salesian Oratory in Frascati, spoke about how during his Civil Service in the Salesian Borgo ragazzi Don Bosco Oratory in Rome, in the early 1990s, his musical adventure took shape. Over the years, the group has released countless albums and performed thousands of concerts at important national and international events, as well as appearing on television programmes. Paolo Falessi invited the young people present to treasure, as he has always done in his life, three characteristics of Don Bosco: to be able to dream big, to believe in the potential of young people and to apply the preventive system.

(ANS – Rome) –  The ACSSA World Presidency meeting took place in Rome on 28-29 October 2023. All the Regional Councillors of the Association met in Rome for the occasion, except for South Asia, physically absent for bureaucratic reasons, but who took part remotely.

(ANS– Rome) – More than a hundred people from Portugal, Spain, Italy and the Middle East took part, from 12 to 15 October, in Malaga at the International Seminar on the Reception of Migrants and Refugees, to reflect on Salesian activity in this field, starting with the recognition of the considerable increase in initiatives dedicated to the reception and integration of migrants and refugees, especially in the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Fr Emanuele De Maria, SDB, Youth Ministry Delegate for the Salesians of Central Italy (ICC), and Alessandro Iannini, Delegate for Marginalisation and Hardship in ICC, who attended the seminar, now share their impressions on the subject.

(ANS – Rome) – More than 3,500 people took part in the 15th edition of the Corsa dei Santi, the race with its departure and arrival near St Peter’s Square, which aims to give visibility as a popular festival to the celebration of All Saints, promote the values of sport according to the Salesian educational tradition, and bring to the fore a humanitarian emergency that calls for solidarity – this year, the Missioni Don Bosco project (the Salesian Mission Office in Turin), to build a new sports complex in Guinea Conakry.

(ANS – Messina) – When it comes to bioethics, Fr Giovanni Russo, SDB, is one of the most authoritative references. The Salesian, a tenured professor in this area, Director of the Theological Institute of St Thomas Aquinas and of the Higher School of Bioethics and Sexology in Messina, which has become a cultural reference point at European level, thanks to his studies in the United States and at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, has the merit of having introduced a new model of bioethics, which advances and arouses interest throughout the world. A few days ago he presented his latest editorial effort, the new manual "Bioethics in Dialogue, Fundamentals and Texts", which he himself describes as "the mature fruit of his over thirty-year commitment". And today he presents it to us.