These have been 25 years of encounters, among lives that met at the centre, among challenges that were lost and won, leaps and falls, labours, joys and pains. It can approximately be calculated that the children that were accepted are more than 3000, of over 50 nationalities, about 400 of whom were under reformatory measures alternative to detention homes. About 1000 are the persons who somehow supported the Centre with their voluntary or professional service or with an external aid.
The Centre began thanks to the initiative of Fr. Alfonso Alfano, “Zi’ Fonso” (Uncle Fonso) to his street children. Along the years he was helped by many other Salesians, workers, volunteers, benefactors, supporters, who worked as instruments of Providence, also because the Centre never received stable economic contributions. Each month and each year, resources were found by involving many institutional realities and private donors. All were at the service of those needy boys and girls, who were and are the sole reason of its existence.
In these 25 years, an educative community has grown and is responsible for educative projects of each of the children, whether there was only one of them, as it happened in the first years, or whether there are over 100, as it happens now.
At the minors’ reception centre various services are offered, such as:
- Literacy classes for children who must learn Italian or learn reading and writing;
- Courses for children who prepare to obtain their high school diploma;
- Basic courses of vocational training (cooking, bar lounge, hairdressing, gardening) Looking for a job, training for work through counselling, training courses and job scholarships ;
- activities such as catering, solidarity and self-funding boxes, to make the youth corresponsible in following formation paths, such as the vegetable garden and the workshop “hands in the hair” – which offers haircuts and hairdressing by appointment.
The Centre now has a years-long experience of activity, the protagonists and the place have changed, but the project is always Don Bosco’s dream: “dedicating oneself to the poorest and abandoned youth”.
