(ANS – Turin) – Sharing, communion, and Salesian spirituality experienced in a spirit of fraternity: these were the elements that characterised the recent activities of the Salesian Family World Advisory Council 2023, which came to a conclusion on Tuesday 23 May 2023 at Valdocco, Turin. There was time especially on the final day to offer relevant topics and events for the entire Salesian Family (SF) and to bring together ideas for the theme of the next Strenna.

Turin, Italy - May 2023 - Presentations of the volume Don Alberto Maria De Agostini, l'ultimo esploratore della fine del mondo 1883-1960), edited by Francesco Motto (LAS 2023), continue. After the national presentations in November in Padua and in March in Rome, and abroad in Patagonia (Rio Grande) in April and Buenos Aires on May 6, a presentation took place on May 22 at the prestigious "Salone del Libro" in Turin; specifically in the booth reserved for FUIS (Federazione Unitaria Italiani Scrittori). Presented by the Federation's President, Natale Rossi, the following spoke: Prof. Nicola Bottiglieri of the University of Cassino, writer and lecturer in South American literature, Dr. Daniela Berta, director of the Mountain Museum in Turin, and Prof. Silvano Oni, lecturer in history at the Salesian University, Turin section. Each speaker, from his or her particular point of view, emphasized some particular aspects of the multifaceted figure of Father Alberto De Agostini, who made the Antarctic’s nature known in Italy in the first half of the 20th century through books, photos, and films on the flora, fauna and Fuegian Indians. To the south of the south, almost off the map, still in the first decades of the 20th century, there existed a world that few people knew about and few or no one had ever stepped on. Fr. De Agostini, or Fr. Patagonia, as he was nicknamed, made it known in words, images, and sounds. The figure of the Salesian, well known in Argentina and Chile, is less so in his homeland, Italy, and the volume presented aims to revive his memory, also in the perspective of the 150th anniversary of the first Salesian missionary expedition to Latin America (1875-2025).

(ANS - Turin) - The Salesian Family World Advisory Council 2023 (SF) has already reached the halfway point of its journey (May 19-23). A journey that this year is more than ever real, as a physical movement in the geographic space between Salesian Sites and as a spiritual pilgrimage "to get in touch with the origins of Don Bosco's charism in a direct and living way," as Fr. Joan Lluís Playà, Central Delegate of the Rector Major for the Secretariat for the Salesian Family, clearly stated.

(ANS - Rome) - This May, the Missions Sector organized a special orientation course for missionaries who have already arrived in their missionary destination lands. Held partly in Rome and partly on Salesian Sites in Piedmont, the course was also an opportunity to gather several accounts about missionary life and their first impact with their new world. Telling his story today, the first of six missionaries, is young Salesian François Tonga, a Salesian in formation, originally from Madagascar and serving in Salesian Albania, belonging to the Southern Italy Province (IME).

Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Italy - May 2023 - On May 18, the School of Salesian Spiritual Accompaniment of English-speaking Salesians concluded; 24 Salesians from 19 Provinces and Vice-Provinces from 14 countries, from the Africa-Madagascar, East Asia-Oceania, South Asia Regions, as well as Great Britain and Malta, participated. The five-week program began on April 17, and was conducted by a team of four Salesians, led by Salesian coadjutor, Br. Raymond Callo, of the Formation Sector, and Fr. Fabio Attard, Head of Formation of Salesians and Laity in Europe. Other Salesians, religious from various institutes, and lay people also offered their contributions. Fr. Attard said, "The five-week experience, lived at Valdocco and Colle Don Bosco, was a journey of grace characterized by a profound encounter with the Word of God, visiting, reflecting and praying on the journey of John Bosco as he grew in the discovery of his call to be an apostle of joy and hope for the young people of his time. It was five weeks of inner listening and pastoral reflections, enriched by the desire to be authentic guides and true ministers to the young people of our time."

(ANS - Rome) - "Formedil," a national joint body for education, safety, and labor services in the construction sector, with its network of 121 territorial bodies, and "Salesians for the Social APS," a nonprofit body of the Salesians in Italy, which coordinates 88 associations nationwide for activities to counter youth marginalization and hardship, have signed a memorandum of understanding for the design and management of initiatives to foster the acquisition of skills in vulnerable individuals for the start-up of trades in the construction sector, with particular reference to the migrant and refugee population, by promoting sustainable social and labor inclusion.