I am Fr Felice Molino and I have been in Africa for many years now. I was immediately assigned by my superiors to the missions in Kenya: in 1981 the first destination was Siakago, where I helped to make some improvements to the mission. In November 1982, I was transferred to Embu, where a large vocational training center now stands. In 1987, it was the turn of Makuyu, and I remained for 21 years as a parish priest. A large center was born there, with a parish, a house for Salesians and the nuns, a dispensary, an orphanage, a vocational training school with many activities and even a typography.
In 2008 I was called to head the Utume center, Nairobi, where young people from different nations and cultures are formed to become Salesians. And finally, in 2011, I was entrusted with the role of director at the "Don Bosco Missions" in Nairobi: a delicate task, because I have to find the help and resources necessary to help the Salesian houses of Kenya and Tanzania.
Africa has always had a special charm for me ... already at 17, I started selling small things to help the missionaries. Thanks to the "Africa Project" started in Makallè, Ethiopia, I started organizing marches to Turin, crowded and joyful ... that reclaimed the duty to help those in need anywhere in the world.
My heart, however, told me that I had to leave as a missionary.
The young and the poor have been and are my great passion and the true motivation of my being a missionary. My first experience in the oratory of Turin taught me to love young people deeply and to want to work for them, for their wellbeing, and to give them a future...
In facing suffering, to those who are last, to those who are defenseless, we are all called to be missionaries.
