44 other young people are undertaking voluntary service abroad. In facilities in Argentina, Benin, Bolivia, Cameroon, Colombia, East Timor, Georgia, Ghana, India, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Montenegro, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uganda and Zambia, Don Bosco Volunteers from Germany will stand by children and young people for a year. In recent months, they have been intensively prepared for their deployment in seminars at the two Don Bosco Volunteers foreign offices in Bonn and Benediktbeuern. Even during their service, the teams will support and accompany the volunteers from Germany.
A voluntary service shapes the participating young women and men for a lifetime, as Magdalena Wiesinger from Don Bosco Volunteers emphasizes: “These young people, whether at home or abroad, are not only performing a service for others. The voluntary service also offers them the opportunity to try themselves out in a new environment, gain experience, and get to know the work with many different people. A year as a Don Bosco Volunteer is always a chance to grow beyond oneself. The volunteers can discover which unexpected talents they have, bring in known interests, and discover new ones.”
The voluntary services in Germany and abroad are understood as holistic youth education based on the Christian view of humanity for young people from all social groups and especially as a service for disadvantaged young people. The volunteers can also enrich the educational work with new impulses and suggestions.
Don Bosco Volunteers
Don Bosco Volunteers has been the provider of various youth volunteer services of the German Province of the Salesians of Don Bosco for more than 25 years. Up to 90 young people annually complete a volunteer service with Don Bosco Volunteers in Don Bosco facilities in Germany and abroad. The two foreign offices in Benediktbeuern and Bonn prepare them intensively for their service and support them throughout their volunteer year. The international volunteer services through the weltwärts program and the European Solidarity Corps, the Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (FSJ), and the Bundesfreiwilligendienst (BFD) are legally regulated and supported by various federal ministries and agencies.
For more information, visit: www.donboscovolunteers.de
Don Bosco in Germany
Don Bosco in Germany is part of the international Don Bosco movement and is committed worldwide to children and young people who need special support due to individual, social, or societal problems. Together with the members of the Salesians of Don Bosco, thousands of full-time and volunteer staff work today in the unique network that the Turin educator and priest John Bosco founded over 160 years ago. They are supported by young people in volunteer service as well as numerous friends and supporters. In Germany, around 200 Salesians of Don Bosco and approximately 2,000 employees at over 30 locations today care for several thousand children and young people daily in educational and youth welfare institutions, open youth centers, youth and youth social work centers, facilities for the disabled, schools, day-care centers, or parishes.
For more information about the work of Don Bosco in Germany, visit: www.donbosco.de
