(ANS – Majunga) – Florian Lucchini is a French young man, well known in the network of the Salesian Youth Movement (SYM-MGS) and among the volunteers of VIDES. In July 2014 he left as a voluntary worker for a project in favour of children and youth in a detention home in Madagascar, an experience that marked him so deeply that at the end of 2015 he decided to dedicate another six months to young Malagasies, at the Don Bosco Centre of Mahajanga. Here below are some excerpts of his testimony.

« The Don Bosco Centre of Majunga is animated by 5 Salesians and comprises the Aspirantate and the ‘Lycée Don Bosco’, which is attended by 320 young students. My main mission are the aspirants, young Malagasies who want to become Salesians. They are between 18 and 23 years old and I teach them 4 periods of French per week. My big problem is that I am not a professor! So sometimes I enjoy playing with them, obviously in French!

They also give me their homeworks to correct; I correct them in the evening, and I do it willingly even though I would prefer to watch a movie on my computer. (...) It is important for me to show that if I had wanted to keep the French comfort and habits, I would have stayed in France.

As a voluntary worker, I occasionally do animation activity for the 700 children of the oratory. I love animation and I would like to do it more often, but – as Sr. Marie says - “a mission is not chosen, it is received”. And so, if they need me for French, let it be so! I often also go to the students of Electro-mechanics, and there I make them speak in French and help them in their subject matter, since I also followed the same course in Marseilles.

Besides, every Saturday I go to the “Don Bosco” Orphanage. There are 17 children, the majority between 5 and 7 years of age. Some of them were abandoned at birth because of some handicaps, one of them was found in the garbage, another one on the shore. There are many such stories!

Sometimes the ask me to give the ‘buona notte’ to the aspirants… Saying a few words knowing that these are the last words they hear before going to bed is always an honour for me ».

Published on 26/02/2016