Different destinations, a single choice: to place themselves at the service of others. The young people will be engaged in the missions of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA) in El Salvador; in the missions of the Salesians in Ethiopia and Sri Lanka; in Cammarata (Sicily), in a reception project for Unaccompanied Foreign Minors, again together with the FMA.

The project aims to educate to solidarity, encounter, welcome, in contexts where humanity itself often seems lost. In the midst of wars, migratory emergencies and profound injustices, these young people choose to “be there”, to get involved, to bring small signs of peace and fraternity.

Narrating the meaning of this choice is Barbara, one of the participants in the formation course, ready to leave for Sri Lanka: “Accompanied by the group of formation for formators, I made the choice to leave this summer for a missionary service experience in Sri Lanka. Leaving means trying to answer the question: 'where is the other?' My days are full of encounters and clashes. I weave my life with family, friends, acquaintances and new faces. I realise that I exist by virtue of these exchanges of human “energy”. I am the keeper of the other, the other of me. And perhaps this is really it. I choose to give my time to this experience to become aware of the other, to recognise that love is a selfless, necessary and human act. I choose to give my gaze to those who are far away, asking God to accompany me so that I may be able to welcome the gaze of those I will be close to. 'Do not owe anyone anything except that of mutual love' (Rom 13:8). I leave keeping my reality in my heart, entrusting to God the realities I will encounter.”

This year's programme is the fruit of a long and intense formation course that has involved about 60 young people from different contexts and realities, united by a common desire to get involved and live an experience that will leave a mark, in them and in the communities that will welcome them.

Months of meetings, moments of reflection, workshops and sharing have enabled these young men and women to make a conscious choice: it is a journey that has led them to confront the challenges of our time, to question themselves on their role in the world and on the profound meaning of the free gift of self.

Looking to the future, the Opera Don Bosco Onlus Foundation intends to continue and strengthen this path in the next pastoral year, involving an increasing number of young people and a growing number of Salesian missions, to create a living and concrete network of global solidarity in the style of Don Bosco.

Because solidarity cannot remain just an ideal to be proclaimed, but must become a daily, concrete and urgent choice, capable of responding with real gestures to the wounds of our times.

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