Italy - November 2023 - On Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 November, the first meeting of the Leaders Formation School 2023-24 was held at the Salesian houses in Bologna BVSL and Sesto San Giovanni OSDB (MI). The Scuola Formazione Animatori (SFA) is a proposal of the Salesian Youth Movement Lombardy-Emilia which, for several years, has involved hundreds of teenagers, offering them a path of formation in Christian life, in the typically Salesian style of the youth apostolate. This year the course will involve 700 teenagers together with more than 240 young people and adults engaged as accompanying persons and formators divided between the two locations. Fr Edoardo Gnocchini, Delegate for Youth Ministry in the Salesian Province of Italy-Lombardy-Emilia (ILE), says how the SFA is still today an appointment that manages to bring together boys, girls and formators from different places who gather together "to make a family in the style of Don Bosco and to give each other the enthusiasm of learning to be leaders, and the experience and joy that filled their hearts in giving themselves to the little ones." Each formation weekend culminates in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration. During the latter, the ILE Provincial, Fr Roberto Dal Molin, emphasised how "the oil in the lamp of our life is the love that the Lord gives; if you live it you are ready to meet the 'bridegroom'". He also stressed how being leaders means 'learning to love as Christians'.