El Salvador - Transforming the lives of hundreds of young people: young people creating a future

07 February 2018

(ANS - San Salvador) - "In El Salvador, being young is a crime." A sentence - the title of an article in the Spanish daily La Vanguardia - that speaks for itself. But it is a sentence that destroys the heart of every educator or parent who sees their children growing up without a future. In the "most violent country in the world" – again according to La Vanguardia - the Sons of Don Bosco have not lost faith nor hope and continue to take care of young people by offering them opportunities to work: because "to form good Christians and honest citizens" is not an easy task especially where "being young is a crime."

The "Fundación Salvador del Mundo" (FUSALMO), with the German NGO "Brücke - Le Pont", have allowed 43 young people to attend and graduate special training courses with diplomas as cashiers, salespersons and customer service staff this past January 2018. These young people also received training in the "culture of peace" and in the "culture of work." Immediately after completing their courses, they started the process of searching for a job.

"These courses are developed as part of the Foundation's mission to provide opportunities for young people, at an educational level and through internships, first jobs. What we offer them are opportunities; we train them, help them look for work and motivate them to be young people who do good. One of the expectations is that they accept and know how to take advantage of these opportunities and find options in the labor market," one of the foundation's functionaries explained.

"It is an opportunity for us young people to enter the world of work and learn various issues we will need throughout our lives. For the future I would like to work and be able to get a job at the level I studied for," added María Alejandra Chachahua Suarez, one of the students of the course.

Another of the beneficiaries was Ricardo Antonio García Chapatón, who said: "It is a space to learn useful things for life, because in this way I develop my abilities as a person."

Ximena Alfaro, a journalist for La Nación newspaper in Costa Rica, wrote that in El Salvador "violence unsettles the lives of young people."

FUSALMO does not unsettle; instead, it transforms the lives of hundreds of young people, offering them an instrument they shall use forever: education.

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