Education and evangelization are at the centre of our mission. The pastoral-educative service that we want to carry out is directed to the integral development of the person. The first and principal beneficiaries of our mission are the young, especially the poorest of them, young workers and those preparing themselves for work, and apostolic vocations; in view of these we work amongst the common folk with special attention to lay evangelizers, family, social communication, and those not yet evangelized. The activities and works by means of which we Salesians carry out our mission, depend on the needs and situations of the people whom we serve. We carry out activities and works in which it is possible to promote the human and Christian education of the young, such as:

1. The Oratory and Youth Centre

An environment of broad acceptance, open to a wide range of young people, above all those most alienated. This is achieved through a diversity of educational and evangelizing activities characterized by their focus on the young and strong personal relationships between educator and youngster, capable of becoming a missionary presence in the world of the young and of civil society.

2. The school and Professional formation

Centres for formal education, inspired by Gospel values according to the spirit and pedagogical style of the Saleisans, in order to promote popular education attentive to the most needy, to their professional formation and to accompanying their gradual insertion into the world of work.

3. Boarding and hostel arrangements

A service for accepting young people without family or who are temporarily estranged from family. Here they find personal relationships, opportunity for commitment and responsibility for young people in daily life, and the life of the group with its various formative educative and Christian opportunities.

4. A presence to the Tertiary sector

Through institutes of higher education inspired by Christian values and with a Catholic and Salesian style; hostels and university residences, other services of pastoral animation at this level.

5. The parish

Characterized by a special attention to young people, above all to the poorest of them, the popular environment where it is to be found, by the presence of a Salesian religious community at its animating heart, and by activity of evangelization and education to faith strictly integrated with the human development of the person and the group.

6. Social services and works for youth-at-risk

A family atmosphere of acceptance and education, animated by a community with ‘preventive’ criteria according to the educative style of Don Bosco. This is inspired by the Gospel and has the aim to evangelize, open to the transformation of realities which are socially exclusive and to the building of a culture of solidarity, in collaboration with other social institutions.

7. Social communication

Through education to an understanding and proper use and utilization of the media, the development of the communicative potential of persons through the new languages of music, theatre, art etc..... Formation to a critical, aesthetic and moral sense, promotion of information and editorial centres in press, radio, television, internet etc. Finally, the service of the Salesian educational and pastoral project.

8. Other new forms of Salesian presence to the young

- The Salesian Youth Movement: communion and connection between all youth groups and associations which acknowledge Salesian spirituality and pedagogy, and which take up an educative and evangelizing task and commit themselves to share and coordinate amongst themselves.

- The Salesian Voluntariate: a voluntary activity commited to the human and Salesian development of the young, above all the poorest of them, and active amongst the common folk, according to the style of Don Bosco’s Preventive System and the values of Salesian Youth Spirituality. They carry out their activity in view of the transformation of society and the removal of causes of injustice, and they favour a community experience and the vocational development of the volunteer.

- Services for vocational orientation: meetings and centres for vocational orientation, communities where this can occur, etc…

- Specialized services for Christian formation: special education centres, houses of retreat and spirituality, centres for pastoral and catechetical formation etc.

Courtesy www.sdb.org