“This time has passed quickly. I want to say right away that the results of the first quarter were encouraging: only nine of the 270 young people in the Vocational Centre did not obtain the grade average, but we do not doubt that they will achieve it before the end of the year. We have publicly rewarded the best in each class; some of them have obtained a scholarship, to the great joy and relief of their families, freed from small school expenses.
Even in the recovery school at the oratory, the children who complete the elementary course behaved excellently. Of course, the recovery work there is more difficult, not many of them having even started school until they were ten or eleven years old, or having abandoned it a long time ago! But the results of the past years show us that almost everyone obtains their elementary certificate, and then the children come to train in our Vocational Centre.
Upon returning after the holidays, all the young people showed up, except for one from the second year, but who had already been with us for three years, coming to complete elementary school: he had very serious situation with his mother, who lives in a six-square-metre wooden hut with the other two young children, without work, trying to make some money by serving some local family. Niríko, 17 years old, had begun to help his mother during the holidays, and he did not feel like abandoning her to go back to school! Of course, this is how he compromised his training as a carpenter; but how can we blame him? Sometimes I think we should also support the families of our children, as we already do exceptionally with some; but how can we do it? We thank Providence if we can just welcome, feed and train their children!
The feast of Don Bosco was the first ‘formative‘ commitment of the second quarter: preparation from afar, with daily listening to the life of Don Bosco broadcast by ‘Radio Don Bosco’; arrangement of places, with decorations everywhere; the novena and then the solemn triduum every morning before starting the courses. On the day of the feast we all gathered in the Parish Church at Ivato for the Eucharistic celebration presided over by the Bishop of Tananarive, Bishop Jean de Dieu Raoèlison.
This year, we left the Carnival aside, because the young people coming out of third year began the pre-examination to obtain the Professional Studies Patent (BEP, in French), after the exam for the Certificate of Professional Suitability (CAP): the latter is another beautiful novelty that we were able to introduce in the Vocational Centre, to further raise the level of training, with a certificate that has more value in access to the world of work.
During Lent we will give all the young people at Clairvaux the opportunity to make a retreat in preparation for Easter: for classes, in the nearby novitiate, for an entire day spent listening to the Word, in silence and in prayer. And then in the future, the commitment of the semester exams and the longed-for departure for the holidays!"
For more information, visit: www.missionidonbosco.org
