(ANS – Naples) – On Monday 11 June youngsters from the Don Bosco Centre in Naples  went to the “Nisida” juvenile prison to give a stage performance of “Grease e’ Napule”. The meeting between the young inmates and the actors was very moving: youngsters from the same backgrounds and the same family histories, for whom often the difference between being inside or outside prison was the result of the Don Bosco Centre.

Theatre plays an important part in the artistic-recreational activities provided by the Salesians in Naples for the young peoples’ all round. This year the theatre group at the Centre decided to put on their own interpretation of the well-known musical “Grease”, adapting and developing it with a Neapolitan flavour; hence the title “Grease e’ Napule”, a cheerful and entertaining musical able to count on the collaboration as Director of Massimo Carrino a well-known Italian comic actor.

The greatly appreciated performance last Monday will be remembered for the high quality of acting and for the meeting between the performers and the inmates, who in some cases were in fact relatives or friends.

At the end of the show as the youngsters from the Don Bosco Centro were getting ready to leave, one of the young inmates who two years before, for some time attended the Salesian Centre, with tears in his eyes said: “I’ll feel even sadder this evening because I could have come here as an actor rather than being a spectator!”

In a city like Naples with its many local problems the “Don Bosco” Social and Educational Centre is a veritable oasis for the young, housing as it does about 90 youngsters between 11 and 18 entrusted to the Salesians by the City Social Services, the Juvenile Courts and the Bank of Naples Foundation for Child Assistance and coming from such high risk areas as Forcella, Rione Sanità, Scampia and the Spanish Quarters.

Fully in accordance with the preferential option of their charism, the Salesians have been concentrating their educational services on abandoned youngsters, victims of violence, those on the streets. These are youngsters who on account of the social context in which they living, can very easily slip into the downward spiral of criminal organisations, or at best of activities only just within the law.

Published 14/06/2012