Oratory activities take place alongside other educational activities (state and Greek Catholic schools), pastoral (Greek Catholic parish) and productive (private typography). The children attending the oratory are about a thousand, all Christians, albeit of various religious confessions and rites. In addition, there is a good group of about 60 university students also attending the oratory. They get together for catechism, after-school extracurricular activities, summer camp and sports - soccer and basketball. Basketball is much loved by the Syrians and there have been a number of young athletes from the oratory who went on to play in the national team.
Throughout the war, extra-curricular activities continued non-stop, responded and respond to a very serious primal need felt by the young: to be able to study in a safe place. The rooms are on the basement floor, semi-interred, and the thick walls acts as buttresses to rocket attacks. The oratory also features a good electric power generator that guarantees light to study and there is an adult always ready to give support when required. This last service is also very important especially to the youngest children, as one of the war's bitter fruits is children abandoning their studies; keeping them in school helps educate a generation otherwise uneducated people being easily manipulated in the future by whoever the ruling powers may be.
The oratory and its Salesians animators are also a point of reference for many of the area's Christian families. Mothers and fathers who, because of the war, have lost their jobs, or have been wounded, or have lost a son enlisted in the army and killed in clashes.
The Salesians of this center have been present throughout the Aleppo siege, and for many people they have been “safe rocks”, a safe place, on which to stand so they may continue walking forth each day. They have been able to absorb the pain, death and fear and transform these into hope, love, joy, and a desire to live.
More information is available on the "Don Bosco Missions" website.
