"But in these two years we had never been able to go to the local realities to see how to carry out these projects", Fr Luca Barone, a member of this same community as well as of the Executive Committee of the VIS, told the Salesians at Salesian Headquarters, after having just returned from the expedition to Ukraine designed precisely to verify these programs and give life to a new design.

"In these missions" Fr Barone continued "the first aim is not only the transfer of skills, but to show closeness to people: the Salesians, in the first place, but also the operators active on the ground –  VIS alone has currently committed 17 – and then of course to all the people who have benefitted."

The Salesian delegation entered Ukraine from Poland on Monday, 2 April, with a first stop in Lviv – a city where the Sons of Don Bosco have initiated three major projects.

The first of these concerned the reception of internally displaced persons from the eastern regions of the country. With the support of Italian Salesian organizations active in the field of international solidarity, the Department of Civil Protection of the Italian Region of Emilia-Romagna and the Government of Poland, the Salesians have prepared housing containers capable of decently accommodating families who have arrived in Lviv with the bare minimum. "Right now there are 960 people still living in these containers, including 314 children between the ages of 5 and 17 – and another 12 families living outside these containers,” said Fr Barone. For this project, the VIS takes care of nutrition, providing daily meals to all these people.

A second project, called 'Unbroken', is dedicated to people left mutilated by the war and provides support for the 'UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Centre', where war-affected adults and children can receive comprehensive and qualified medical care, including reconstructive surgery, orthopaedics and robotic prostheses. As the Salesian explained, it is a very large social segment comprising young soldiers wounded on the front, people who were victims of the thousands and thousands of mines left by Russian troops in the territories they invaded, especially in the east, or those who were hit by shrapnel during the bombing. With a Salesian perspective of reintegration and social value for these hard-pressed people, the Salesians have activated this program that involves involvement in sports practice and the formation of a football team of mutilated individuals with prostheses.

The third project carried out by the Salesians is coordinated together with the staff of the Salesian family home in Lviv – one of the ordinary activities of the Sons of Don Bosco in that city – and provides for a special accompaniment for minors left orphaned due to the war "many of whom are not yet aware that they no longer have their family".

The Salesian delegation, with great attention to safety protocols,  managed to reach the Capital, Kyiv, where the Salesians run support programs for people there.

From the city of Dnipro, aid to the population living in the eastern regions is coordinated. In this regard, Fr Barone recalled the efforts that see the Salesians loading buses with foodstuffs and basic necessities both to the front and to those people who did not want to leave their homes - almost always the elderly - whom the government authorities are unable to provide for since the expenditure of resources in this war situation is too high.

In addition, in Kyiv, the delegation of the Italian Salesian international solidarity bodies was able to attend all the institutional meetings for discussion and exchange of views: with the Italian Ambassador, the Apostolic Nuncio, the Director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. 

Concluding his sharing with his confreres, Fr Barone offered some considerations that matured during his visit, such as, for example, the fact that human solidarity, if it does not become a project, eventually decays, leaving people alone. Therefore, he said, "we Salesians can only look at development and emergency from a pastoral point of view," namely, "holding emergency and development together from the perspective of youth ministry."

Finally, the Salesian noted the jarring gap between Easter in which the mission to Ukraine took place, which he recalled in the phrase "salvation comes from above," and the current reality of war where often "it is death that comes from above" because of the constant bombing. Nonetheless, concluded Fr Barone, the Sons of Don Bosco in Ukraine always remain committed not only to giving material support, but above all to offering a perspective of meaning, a further meaning enabling people, in the midst of the continuous sound of air raid warnings, to have a glimpse of a future with hope.

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