Italy - Testimony: Antonia and “the adoption lite” of Ahmed, foreign minor at San Luigi Community of Turin
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21 August 2018

(ANS - San Salvario) - What does Don Bosco mean in San Salvario? Here is the testimony of Antonia, a mother of three children and a housewife from Turin, who since September acts as a foster parent, "a lite-version", of Ahmed, a 17-year old Senegalese, a foreign minor residing in the Community of  Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (MSNA) of the San Luigi Oratory of Turin.

"My name is Antonia. I am a mother and a housewife. I live in Turin, in the San Salvario neighborhood, near the community of San Luigi, where I come on Tuesdays to help prepare lunch with the boys of the MSNA Community. For a few months together with my family we have been following Ahmed, inviting him on Saturday and Sunday to spend time with our family. Thus a relationship of mutual trust has been established; we started to get to know him and he us and, always in the family, he spent Christmas Day with us.

Ours is not a “light” adoption but, rather, a true accompaniment: we consider ourselves more a point of reference for these youngsters with whom we hope to build a bridge until they reach 18 years of age, when they will then walk alone. We are close, perhaps for advice, to spend time together, to never let them feel alone. We hold them by the hand, hoping to have passed on to them the most important values, helping them to integrate into our community. With Father Mauro, guardian of the foreign minors of the community, we would like to set up a group of families to develop an accompaniment path for the boys who, when they reach the age of majority, will live in Social Housing in the rooms of the rectory of Via Saluzzo 25/bis, so they can avoid entering immediately into adult life.

Because you do not become big or an adult overnight, in the blink of an eye at 18; an age in which, if a guide is lacking, one is still fragile and particularly prone to innumerable risks and dangers. For this reason we need other families to welcome this proposal because, if one is a parent, one is also a parent of others. In the heart of a mother, there is room for everyone."

http://www.salesianipiemonte.info/la-testimonianza-antonia-e-laffido-leggero-di-ahmed-minore-straniero-della-comunita-al-san-luigi-2/

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